Figgy Pudding - RoseWhispers - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

"Why don't you tell me how things started," they asked.

It was dark here in this little corner. They only just were able to fit themselves together. There was more confidence than menace in the query. It was as though they knew I would tell them the whole tale. As though it was never an option to do otherwise.

"It is quite a long story. Some–no most of it is unbelievable. You will think that I'm lying to you. You'll think I'm making it up. But it will be true. What is the point of telling such a long story, if the listener won't believe it."

There was a look shared between them. A look that said what was known was already unbelievable. A look that implied how far something would have to go for the listener to not believe. But the listener was undaunted by what she had said, the story would be told.

Sighing, she shifted in the hard, uncomfortable chair. "I suppose I might as well get comfortable. This is going to be a long story… It's not even that it covers a great deal of time, though I suppose that's rather subjective. It's because in that small span of time, so much happened."

Giving the listener a serious look she started her tale with a sardonic smile, "It all starts on the day I was born. A Christmas baby…"

Chapter 2: Never

Chapter Text

It is an odd sensation to be born again. I had died, I knew that for certain. It wasn't pleasant or fast, but it was definitely certain. After that there had been a bright white place and then a gray hazy place that had been the consistency of candy floss. I just sort of floated there for an indeterminate amount of time.

What was time without existence?

I had not thought of being born again. I didn't think that was a possibility. I had spent my gray period mourning my life and loved ones. Now I was in a new body with a new life to look forward to enjoying.

I wondered if all babies kept their memories of their past lives for a time or if something had gone wrong.

Either way I was going to use it to my advantage as much as I possibly could. An infant might not be able to do much, but as long as they are learning they are creating neural pathways at a ridiculous rate. Why I could simply do some basic maths or recite French verb tenses to give my mind a head start!

There was an awful lot of pain though. After being squeezed through what I assumed was the birth canal I was feeling squished and sore all over. I tried not to think about the strangeness of being born and instead focused on opening my eyes and breathing deeply. But as I tried to breathe and concentrate I was distracted by something I hadn't noticed previously.

I hadn't realized that there was no sound before. I know children can't see very much at all as babes, but I should have been able to hear. There was nothing though. No distant humming of electronics. No voices of any kind. No woosh-woosh of my own heartbeat.

In a panicked moment I thought that perhaps I had been reincarnated as some sort of bug without the ability to hear. It would be a very short life if that was true. I calmed myself by realizing I had fingers.

It was strange to have new fingers. But having finally identified some part of my new body I found that I was able to open my eyes. Things were a little cloudy, just a little blur to everything. When I tried to smile at my success I found I couldn't move the muscles there. I couldn't move my neck at all. The little twitches of my fingers were the most I could manage.

There wasn't much I could see of the room. It was bland in the way that office buildings often are, with eggshell white walls and ceilings. Though I couldn't see it, I assumed the floor was the same monotonous color of boring. There were little decorations up along where crown molding might be, they hung in swooping green arcs with little pops of red where each arc met. It wasn't much to go on, but in such a situation I could hazard the guess that it might be December and these might be Christmas decorations.

There really wasn't anything to do for what felt like long hours. As the pain receded, I amused myself with plans for my future and getting a head start on those neural pathways by doing whatever maths came to mind. I wondered where my parents were. Perhaps I was ill and this was some sort of hospital. It would explain why I still couldn't hear anything. The lack of muscles from being a newborn didn't worry me, that was something that could be worked up to with exercise, but hearing was something else entirely.

The lighting seemed to dim on its own. Which reminded me that there was light in this windowless room. But when I looked up, there weren't any lights at all. Looking as far to the sides as I could, I saw no lighting fixtures there either. Closing my eyes and slowly opening them again I realized that the soft light was coming from the walls themselves. There were no fixtures at all. Well, then this was definitely at least 50 to 100 years into my own future. Sure such technology might make its way onto the market in 25 years, but for it to be so ubiquitous? That sort of thing needed more time. It was really the only thing available to clue me in to when I had come back.

I took a good look around the walls again, at least as much as I was able, and realized something else. Unless the door was situated in the wall that was behind my bed and outside of my peripheral range, then there was no door at all. Which I supposed made a certain kind of sense, in the future how likely are we to tolerate a break in the architecture for a door? No, there was a door here but we had advanced enough that my blurry vision couldn’t make it out.

Finally, after an eternity of neverending boredom, a door appeared. In the door walked someone dressed in a manner that assured me that things were very different from when I had come from. The person was wrapped in so much cloth it was amazing they could move so easily. It reminded me of how women used to wear petticoats, bustles, and hoop skirts. Except that instead of there being any kind of form or fashion, the fabric all hung loosely from the whole of their body. The only part that was tight enough to imply some kind of form was towards the wrist and neck as even the arms had more fabric swathed over them and draping. There was a cinching sash at the waist that didn't even tighten enough to make out the waist itself, but was probably used to keep all the fabric together. It might be odd to focus first on the clothing a person is wearing before thinking of the person themself, but one must consider the truly massive amount of cloth as well as the startling color of the cloth. The color was somewhere between lime and neon green. And there was just so much of it.

As they got closer I could tell that they were still human in a way that I recognized. I hadn’t even realized until that thought crossed my mind that I had worried I would end up on a planet other than Earth dealing with new experiences with an alien race. They had cropped curly brown hair and a pale face, that probably looked even paler due to the color of their outfit. Their lips were moving and white teeth showed, but I still couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t hear them speak. I couldn’t hear them move. I couldn’t hear all the rustling of fabric that must surely be happening.

They took out a long, thin black instrument and waved it around my head as they spoke. Another advancement in technology from my time. Perhaps some sort of ultrasound or even a completely new type of scan? Though I couldn’t tell what was happening, they obviously were analyzing some sort of data. They didn’t look pleased, but they didn’t look worried either. I truly didn’t know what to make of it.

Eventually, they moved back and put away their scanner. They began speaking at me again as though I might understand them. Perhaps they were just speaking because they were used to patients who were older? Or perhaps that was the newest take on things? Always speak to your patients even when they are infants? But then their face lit up and they covered their mouth a bit as though they had just said something funny and laughed at their own joke. The scanner came back out and was pointed in my direction and…

“How are you feeling dear? I’m so sorry for not taking that off you right away. I didn’t realize it had lasted so long. Do you have any pain anywhere?” asked a light, lilting voice from the person who had been treating me. “Oh, is that still on you too? Whatever were they thinking earlier?” they grumbled as their scanner moved back over me. As it did I felt tingles running down my whole body, my jaw slackened, my muscles relaxed, and I was no longer held in the same position by an invisible force.

“Is that better, luv?”

I could hardly have answered them, in fact it’s a miracle I heard their question at all, because I was slowly coming to the realization that my senses had been as bound as my body. My body which was quite a lot bigger than a newborn’s body. I took a deep breath in and tried to calm myself. I tried to swallow a few times, my throat sore and dry in a way I hadn’t noticed before.

“Here, let me get you a drink,” they said and moved towards a table to my left. After pouring me a drink from a carafe and helping me drink, I was now certain that I was not a child. My body was probably not even that of a teenager. I had only made it to 25 before I had died, perhaps I had somehow made my way into the body of a 25 year old some time into the future? But if this was someone else’s body then there would be questions as to why I could not recall any of the things that they should know.

“How?” I asked carefully deciding it was the most sensible question. My voice came out more nasally than I was used to and had a lilt to it not dissimilar to my caretaker. I couldn’t quite place it, almost as if my mind was full of clouds, only fluff found there.

“There was a fight between a bunch of rowdy rabblers. You got caught in a misfire. It took us quite a while to figure everything out. You should be fine now, a bit weak. Perhaps some confusion.”

“Certainly... con-confused,” I was able to choke out. I tried to sit up more and as my caretaker helped me up, I tried desperately to make sense of what was going on. I had thought I knew some of what had happened and had been thrown for an entirely new loop.

“That’s alright, luv. I’m going to bring you some potions to get you up to better levels. Then you have a good sleep. If you’re still confused after that, we will do something else.”

They fluffed up my pillows and went back through the now visible door that had appeared to the left of my bed in the wall opposite. I could hardly contain my shock. I was an adult, I had been hurt in a brawl, and they were going to go get…potions? When would we ever call medicine potions? Did we regress? What is going on?!

I hadn’t even gotten a hold of my train of thought by the time that they came back. In their hands was a tray filled with delicate vials filled with various colors and a smile on their face. The blur hadn’t really gone away, but when they drew closer I could see them more clearly. When I mentioned that my vision was a bit hazy they brushed it off and pointed to their tray.

“This should take care of any issues the concussion may have caused in addition to the magical damage,” they paused at my intake of breath. “Are you in pain? Does anything hurt?”

“No, I just-I just didn’t understand that magic had-had,” I couldn’t get it out. Magic? Magic in the future? Potions? It doesn’t make any sense.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Yes, it was an amazing stroke of luck. Your friend was able to get you to us fairly quickly, but we had trouble figuring out the curse. Turns out it was old family magic mixed with a curse from one of the others. But don’t worry yourself about the men that did this, they are already on the way to the ministry. The aurors were there fast as you please to clean it up. The others weren’t as bad off as you luv, of course, as they were wizards.”

As they told me all of this, apparently not needing to breathe, they bid me to drink one disgusting vial after the other. The potions were different in more ways than just color. The smell of some were noxious, the textures of some were chunky, it was not a pleasant experience to have when learning one had been reborn into a world with magic. Or at least what people thought was magic. What was that quote? “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

With the last vial drunk, they smiled at me and tried to make me more comfortable in the bed. I tried to shake some sleep from my head and ask a question, there were so many questions, but I could do nothing more than close my eyes and sleep. I was deep under before they had even picked up the tray of empty vials.

She was beautiful.

There was never anyone as beautiful as she was. Her hair a riotous mass of black curls and her eyes an exquisite amber that bourbon wished it could achieve. And we were dancing, sweet laughter spilling from her enchanting mouth as we spun about a floor in a space too tight but perfect all the same.

A swirl of color and then there was a bubble and simmer going in many cauldrons as we kept pace with each other. Moving and timing each step as we worked one and then the next. These potions were needed, they were necessary, but at the same time this joyful dance just tied us to each other ever closer. Each passed ingredient, every widdershins stir, something more between us strengthened. Her hand brushes mine as she passes me the next one and her eyes look into mine. The world spun in shades of deep forest greens and vibrant purples.

We were sitting in a cozy living room, a cat on each of our laps and a basket of kittens on the floor. I glance at her and feel a love for her in a way that I have never felt for anyone before. So truly and deeply in love with her, she was my soulmate. She looks up to find me staring and we both share a silly smile and turn the page of our books. The room swung round in perfect peaches and sunset yellows.

It was Christmas and there was a big party, so many merry friends had made their way here for a joyful occasion. There she was, so beautiful in her robes. We spoke words and words were spoken about us, but the most brilliant part was her and how she and I would be together forever. Always. Bound by this cord, bound by this love, bound by this magic. Just as it was always meant to be, forever. But the beauty of it was twisted away in fierce oranges and the glowing of cinders.

There was pain. There was so much pain. A burning, trembling pain that broke and clawed and raged it’s way out of me. She was gone. There was nothing that they could do. No magic could save her. No potions could bring her back to me. I could still feel the grimy soot on my hands, the sting on my torn knees, the burn of the fire on my back. She had been taken. She had fallen. She left. What was I now? How could I continue to exist when she was not here with me?

I jolted awake into the bright room of Saint Mungo’s Hospital and knew myself.

The swirling, ebullient memories of myself came from two different people. One a plain, nonmagical 25 year old woman who had died tragically. The other a plain, squib 45 year old woman who had taken several curses about the head. I had the full memories and knowledge of both people. Maybe even the personalities of both people. It was like one of those Star Trek episodes where two people go through a transporter and get turned into a single, but totally new individual. Didn’t that happen in an episode? I couldn’t recall, no one's memory is picture perfect.

I remembered so much though, the human brain really shouldn’t hold memories like this and it felt as though my head was splitting apart. My most emotional memories from both lives were pushed to the forefront as I tried desperately to calm myself. I could do this, I was a spy and a damn fine operator. In my other life I wasn’t much of a hardline, but in this life? The person who’s body I now inhabited? This woman had been through wars and come out tough as nails and good at hiding it. A memory popped up of stories read by the younger woman, stories of Virginia Hall and Cuthbert. Letting your opponent underestimate you was a good strategy for a spy. And now, I remembered, I was a guard to the most important child in all of magical Britain.

Why just the day before…
Well that can’t be right.
No, I wouldn’t do that.

But I did do that. I did exactly that and the havoc it would wreak was written in storylines that the younger woman had read. The older woman had written Albus every time that she was able to be a sitter for the child, because every time he came to her more hungry and bruised. Not even five and he had burns on his hand from where hot grease had splattered from a pan. She’d written to Albus of the abuse, sent him pictures of the bruises, and he had come and watched the house from a distance. He hadn’t even laid eyes on the child himself, just looked at the house for a long while, before brushing off the concern. They had argued and argued and argued, every time. But in the end, she did what she was told. She was the spy. She was the guard. He was the one in control.

The new her didn’t like that.

The older woman had been resigned to being an awful sitter just so she could get the child away from the abusive guardians that Albus insisted he stay with.

The new her did not find that acceptable in the slightest.

My mind raced now on a different course. The young woman had ideas and knowledge that the older did not, but it was filtering its way through the older woman's knowledge of this world. Through this merging of understandings a new plan for the future would emerge and nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Chapter 3: Metamorphosis

Chapter Text

It was hours after I woke that first time and started plotting that another healer entered my hospital room. I had spent the time trying to organize the memories and knowledge of a young woman born in the 21st century with an older woman born almost a hundred years before her. What comparisons I could make between the history that the young woman remembered and the time that the old woman had lived showed no significant differences with one exception, of course.

Magic.

In this world magic was real. I did pause, though, to think that perhaps the young woman was simply a muggle and had not known magic existed. It hardly mattered. The world I would live in, and the society I existed within, had magic and that was what really mattered.

I tried to sleep in fits and starts, each time it seemed that I dreamt of impactful moments of my past lives. I was both of these people, but I was me and me was not one of them alone. This was not a meeting of water and oil, I was a whole new person made up from their lives. The old woman was prepared to allow a child to be raised in abuse and die in a war most thought was over because Albus had told her to do so. The young woman would never have allowed such a thing. Child abuse to raise a child soldier? There was no way that was acceptable. The lives of the many could be saved in a different way than deciding to sacrifice someone molded to die. I was of the same mind as the young woman, there was no reason to allow such a thing to happen. But I was also tempered by the older woman who understood the cost of war with a closeness the young woman had never known. Something had to be done and during these fitful hours I had started a vague plan of how to do it.

I was more alert with this healer, and more knowledgeable about what was going on, I asked questions and prodded them for information. I knew that most magic and potions worked on muggles and squibs just fine, but not nearly as well as they worked for people who could actively use their magic with a wand. I wanted some recommendations for who to see or what to take to help my aging body, it wasn’t that long ago that I remembered being a healthy 25 year old and now I was dealing with the difficulties of an under cared for 45 year old body. I received a list of things that would be useful and a list of people to seek out for help. I wouldn’t be able to make my body younger, but I would be able to patch it up better with magic. At that moment I felt as though I was closer to 80 than 50 and it was caused by the older woman’s emotional issues more than anything else.

The older woman hadn’t truly lived a desperately hard life. Her family would be considered upper middle class in the magical world. She had lived through depressions, wars and attacks, but her body hadn’t taken much more damage than stress. She hadn’t been cast out when she didn’t receive her letter to Hogwarts. It had been a surprise, to be sure, as she had been helping her mother with common potions for the house and gardens since she was nine. She had tried a few spells with a family wand and completely failed to produce any magic, but they had thought that was perhaps because it wasn’t a wand of her own. Some magic could be temperamental like that, needing a properly matched wand to channel it into anything of use. After the shock had worn off her parents had decided that she would find her place in the world regardless of how much magic she did or didn’t have and they started her working with animals and plants right away.

It’s a little acknowledged fact that many squibs live on the fringes of magical society. They usually work in the fields of magizoology or herbology. As they still have passive magic, they can work with a great many varieties as long as they don't mind the danger. She had found that her magic reacted strongest while working with a litter of kneazles that had made their home in the family barn. It was an amazing warmth that filled her as she bonded with the kittens. She imagined that must be how people felt when they find the right wand. It was this that had started her journey in becoming a specialist breeder of kneazles. It was an acceptably profitable endeavor and helped her feel more magical when she was surrounded by her darlings.

During the time before the war she had become quite well known in the squib circles for her abilities with kneazles. She could, to some degree, communicate with them and that was a rare gift. There were animal speakers out there, the most famous being a Hogwarts founder, but there had never been a known squib who could communicate the way that she could. It gave her a sense of pride that she had this ability even if she would never use a wand. Before she had reached twenty she had a fairly well built business and a reputation that proceeded her. Her breeds were always more intelligent than the already smart kneazles that were on the market and she always had a contract going with the various menageries in Britain to be filled during the summer months. This allowed new students their choice of smart familiars before going off to school. She had even started branching out into European markets just before the war began in earnest.

Later on though, during the war, she had been asked to use her abilities with kneazles to find information. She had struck on the fact that she appeared to be a harmless middle aged woman with a large fondness for cats. She used this as a mask as she drifted between the muggle and magical worlds. No one paid attention to the cat lady. And if the old maid cat lady act in the muggle world was enough to render her invisible, just being a squib in the magical world was enough for her to fade into the background. Throughout the seventies she had spied and kept watch, and no one knew what was going on like she did. Her connections and her ability to act to the point of social invisibility was unmatched.

But there was never any true call for her to fight or to heal the wounded in the battles between the acolytes of Voldemort and Dumbledore. She did not have the power to do so, it was her ability to garner information that kept her in a high place at the Order table. The physicality of the spying had not done this harshness to her body. It was the emotional consequences of the war that had worn her body down. The sadness of loss that stopped her from taking care of herself. The push to continue on through grief that had set into her bones. The prejudice that she faced, both real and perhaps imagined, that had kept her from seeking out magical help for issues easily cared for with a potion or a wave of a healer’s wand. There was an aspect of her grief here too. A mistrust of healer’s magics, because it couldn’t always heal that which had been harmed.

After retrieving my things, a bundle of packages and a handbag, I used the floo to get back to my house. There was very little that was magical in the house. This was for the best as I lived in a muggle area and had to play sitter to many of the children around me. As part of my cover I had offered to be a sitter to the many young parents of the neighborhood. It was a young, up-and-coming type of place and there were quite a number of boys and girls that might need a sitter at a moment's notice. I was the harmless old cat lady down the way that could fill in when needed.

There were 17 cats and kittens in total right now and they all gathered around me as I stepped out of the fireplace, one of the few concessions to magic that was out in the open. They seemed wary of me at first. They definitely recognized that I was a new person, but at the same time I was the older woman too. I spent a few minutes cooing over them and easing their worries. I hadn’t lost the ability to communicate with them after I had merged into a new person, that was a good thing. It would be very difficult to explain how I had suddenly lost that ability.

After the cats had been soothed, I put the packages away in the expanded linen closet that was hidden from view. It was a place for me to hide most of the magical items that I had. Everything from moving photographs and books on magical history to an old cauldron I couldn’t let go of and a set of enchanted baskets for new kittens. The packages were Christmas presents I had found at Al Farooq Alley. They had wonderful secondhand shops along the alley as well as good quality but inexpensive wares. I had been able to purchase a present for the last people on my list there before I had gotten caught in that fight the day before Christmas. I had missed the holiday itself, having spent it in St Mungo’s, but I was sure that my friends would understand the late gifts. For now, I simply stacked them in a little shelving unit and went back to my kitchen.

I needed to make lists and plans. That was definitely the influence of the younger woman. She loved lists. She had a near unnatural fondness for bullet points and sticky notes. The younger woman thrived in an organized environment and so made sure her environment was as orderly as she could make it. She was the type of person that scheduled out cleaning and did chores like grocery shopping with a planned precision that may have bordered on a compulsive disorder, but was more likely to be part of an autistic spectrum. As I settled in with paper and pen at the kitchen table, I turned my mind to the younger woman’s memories.

There had never been a time without the world of Harry Potter for the young woman. Her parents, Christopher and Sarah Harrison, couldn’t have remembered a time without the story either. She was the child of two people who had lucked out in finding someone just as nerdy and geeky as themselves and had gone on to raise her with those same interests. Her father was a math teacher who loved all things scifi and fantasy. Her mother was an estate agent with a national company who had a passion for old school tv shows like the original Buffy and books like Harry Potter.

The younger woman grew up watching the various Star Trek, Star Wars, and Harry Potter shows and movies. Marvel movies were being rebooted again too, not that her father cared for these new takes on his old favorites. She was definitely named after the character on Buffy, Willow, and her mother found it especially funny given how close their last name was to another character. She had read all of the Harry Potter books, as well as Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia before she even finished primary school as her parents had taken to reading them as bedtime stories.

After school she did a tech program and got a data entry job fairly quickly. She used the money to rent a nice sized place for herself and her two cats, Mr Fuzzybottom and Mr Twinkletoes. Often just referred to as Fuzzy and Twinkle. She had adopted them from the shelter together as they were adorably attached to each other.

Her paycheck also fueled her hobby of building computers. She had built a number already. Most of them were just tricked out as far as color and lighting went, but she’d been able to customize them for higher level graphics that gamers needed.

Her life had been rather ordinary really. She had traveled outside of the country a bit, but only far enough for a beach break with her friends. She had an online book club that she enjoyed a lot as it introduced her to works that are old enough to be in the public domain. But she had never done anything truly exciting, especially not when compared to the life of a spy in a magical world.

What she did have, though, was a sharp and well organized mind filled with knowledge about Harry Potter and the bigger picture that Albus often kept to himself. The problem with that knowledge was that some of it was contradictory. There had been the books, then the movies, then the play, then more movies, and then a reboot, then the tv series. All of which added more and more to the wonderful world, but didn’t all work well together. And what about all of the games? Did those count as canon? The problem of how much of her knowledge was canon and how much was fanon was difficult to get past. There was also just so much fanfiction that she had read that could be influencing how she remembered things.

Chapter 4: Planning

Chapter Text

I decided that I would write out everything, absolutely everything, that I could remember from the young woman’s memories about the magical world. Every person, every event, every possibility no matter how vague or potentially contradictory was written out. My hand was sore and I had gone through a whole stash of pens before I thought I should take a break for something to eat. Taking a look around the house once more I realized that the home might be perfect for creating the old lady facade, but it was not one that I was comfortable actually living in now. The number of cats was also an issue as there was no way that I would be able to continue to take care of so many and do all the things I was thinking of doing.

I set about making myself a sandwich and popping on the kettle, before starting in on a new list with lovely little bullet points. I needed to go about getting the potions and such to help heal up my body first. It would probably take the most time. Then I was going to have to find some way to block legilimency as I hadn’t the magical strength for occlumency. After that I would need to set about directly saving Harry Potter right under the nose of the most politically, socially, and magically powerful wizard in Britain.

A sip of tea and a few bites of sandwich and I went back to plotting. I would need allies to combat the power that Albus Dumbledore wielded over the magical population. When he spoke people listened, when he asked for something, most people agreed to do it. I should know, I used to be one of those people. I needed someone that was powerful in their own right, but outside of his influence. That left a whole cast of dark characters that would never listen to a squib, let alone help me with protecting and raising the Boy Who Lived. I remembered something though. Something was stuck in my memories trying to work its way through, but my mind felt sluggish still. I began to think that some of my symptoms might just be from old age, the mind slows down after thirty after all.

It was while I was making a list of things that needed doing on the legal side that enough of the thought worked its way to the forefront of my mind. With a bit of dumbfounded blinking and a scraping of my chair, I went back to my expanded closet. I suppose it couldn’t really be called a closet with how expanded it had been, it was the size of a large office or small bedroom. But I had used it these past few years for storage and always thought of it as a closet before now. My finger skimmed the titles of the books on my shelves before finding the tome in question. I hefted it out of the room with me and it thunked down on the kitchen table. It was the type of book Hermione Granger might one day call “light reading” and it took some time to find what I was looking for, particularly given that the information was only half remembered from school days long past.

I read the relevant passage several times. It wasn’t very long and it wasn’t very informative. Eventually, I read it out loud as though that would help give me further information,

“The Queen of England has a Court Sorcerer who keeps her abreast of all magical activities both in her kingdom and abroad. The Court Sorcerer is also charged with teaching the royal family about magic itself and acting as a bridge for the crown between the two worlds since the enactment of the International Statute of Secrecy that was officially established in 1692. The witch or wizard who fills the position is appointed by the crown and can act as an ambassador on behalf of the crown in the magical world. See Merlin, page 1397.”

Next to the entry was a moving photograph of a man with a long oval face and thinning hair. He would look around a bit and then back at the reader before the loop would start again. The picture declared him to be, "Clarence Holcomb, Court Sorcerer. 1982 - Present" which at least gave me some information on who was Court Sorcerer.

But I felt like slamming the book closed. Even if the Court Sorcerer was beyond the sphere of his influence there was no way that I could covertly contact an unknown entity without the possibility of the act leaking to others. Albus might not pay much mind to the muggle government, except to treat their minister with condescending kindness and small words, but he would have others that listen and report even if they were never quite on my level. Without a way to make direct contact there would be no help from this quarter, it was just a useless factoid that most of magical Britain had forgotten after their first history lessons were through. The time for stong allies was perhaps a year or two away, however, and I might be able to find one within that timeframe. For now I needed to concentrate a little closer to home.

Some time after dinner I had finished writing up letters and orders, wrapping presents and signing cards, and started sorting everything into a large shopping bag. The bag looked like an ordinary shopping bag that would fit with my persona of an old cat lady, but it had added enchantments to make it light and to allow it to carry more. All people on the spectrum of magic could interact with such enchantments, so I had to always make sure that the bag was properly hidden away when not in use. After I finished readying it for the day tomorrow, I put it back in the closet and made my way to a shower.

Since it was Boxing Day, there was very little else I could do except what had already been done. I would get up bright and early tomorrow and go into town. I had things that needed to be done in both worlds, if this was to truly work I would need to coordinate things in both the muggle and magical world. I did my nightly routine with the kneazles, making sure they were fed and watered, and then made my own way to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

27 December 1984

The next morning I put on my overcoat and tied a scarf around my hair as I walked up to the front door, petting each kneazle a short farewell. When I put my hand on the doorknob I had to remind myself that I was not me, I needed to be what I had previously acted as being. A slouch of my shoulders and a shuffle in my slow gait is all it took for people to see me as many years older. If I stopped to speak to someone, there would be an added wavering shake to my voice that people acquired as they get older.

I shuffled a few streets over from my house, careful to avoid any ice, and then pulled a thick gold medallion from beneath my blouse. It was round in shape, larger than a pound coin and thicker too, around the sides were thick swirls like cascading waves that went round and round without ever stopping. It hung from a thin gold chain around my neck and I had not taken it off in the more than ten years since I had received it. Before the medallion I had a small coin that fit the function, but the ministry fashioned and provided talisman was not as strong as my medallion. It was this that allowed me to perform activities in the magical world that would require a wand for no good reason.

I pulled it up and held it out in front of me, the chain becoming magically longer as I pulled it up and out, as though hailing a cab. A sharp sound ripped through the air as a large, violently purple triple-decker bus appeared out of nowhere. Climbing aboard the bus and handing over my fare for the trip to Diagon, I settled as well as I could into a chair. The conductor, Stan Shunpike, that was mentioned in the books probably hadn’t even started at Hogwarts yet. As such the conductor I was used to, Danny Brown, made the ride less of a chaotic nightmare than was portrayed during Harry’s ride. There were obviously charms and enchantments for that sort of thing and it was the conductor’s job to use them, Stan was just still too wet behind the ears to be any good at his job.

I had decided to use the Knight Bus instead of the floo network for a few reasons. With the holidays just over, there was likely a larger number of people at the shops spending their Christmas money. That meant the floos at major points, like the Leaky Cauldron, would be backed up.

When floos had congestion you could get spat out at any floo closest to your intended destination. That was not something I wanted to experience again, especially not when the nearest clear floo might be down Knockturn Alley. The other reason for using the Knight Bus instead of the floo was because it could be a convenient meeting place for me and anyone I was looking to get information from. It wouldn’t look odd for the little old squib to chat with someone else on the Knight Bus as she went to do some shopping or head out to Gringotts.

In fact, I had made sure to sit on every level of the bus and often chat with people even if they weren’t a contact in order to make it look quite normal for me to do so when I did meet an agent. Good spycraft was built on looking like everything was normal while information was passed back and forth. Signaling that it was safe to speak by wearing a certain scarf a certain way or that they suspected tracking or other charms with the way they held their paper. Goodness knows what I’ll do when Stan becomes the conductor, I won’t be able to speak to anyone without being hurled towards the side of the bus. Not exactly conducive for subtle covert meetings.

There were three popular ways into the largest part of the magical shopping district, Diagon Alley, the most famous of which was behind the Leaky Cauldron. The second was behind Flourish and Blotts. The bookstore was located on the north side of the alley and was around even before the Statute of Secrecy. The hiding place for it was a brick wall in a seemingly deadend alleyway on the muggle side, nearly the same way as how one entered via the Leaky. The third way, which was not often used, was to enter through a small seemingly vacant shop that let out into the Museum of Muggle Curiosities on the side street called Carkitt Market right near where it met Diagon Alley. When taking the Knight Bus, however, one was always dropped at the Leaky when asking for Diagon as it made picking anyone up easier on the bus and its driver.

I slowly climbed down the stairs and made my way through the pub and out towards the back. Taking out my medallion I tapped it on the proper brick and was able to step into Diagon Alley. I breathed in the magic for a moment. Memories of wishing to see Diagon Alley as a child in a world where magic didn’t exist nearly overwhelmed me. The bright colors, the obvious use of magic, gave me a heady feeling and a flush crept up my cheeks. This was the way to introduce someone to magic. Much better than chunky potions. Once I had gotten a better hold over myself I shuffled down the alley towards the post office.

The post building was a large red painted box building that leaned ever so slightly to the left. Its two stories were covered in little charmed owls that sparkled in the snowy morning sun. The windows on the ground floor were nearly opaque with advertisem*nts for special holiday pricing, but a bit of the shop and a few owls could be seen between the large flashing promotions. I walked over to the door and faked a bit of trouble at its heaviness. Though, not as much of that was as fake as I would have liked. I ambled up to the counter, my gait a little crooked, and placed my bag on its surface before smiling at the clerk.

“Hello again dear,” I said softly, smiling my most grandmotherly smile. “I’ve a few packages and letters to go out as well as my usual pickup.”

We made the customary small talk as the clerk went over the packages and counted up the letters. There were quite a few letters, some were Christmas cards, but many were to acquire potions and healing services as recommended by St Mungo’s. Others were to set up appointments to further my plans to help Harry and the magical world. All in all it was nearly twelve packages and eighteen letters. I also arranged to get a post box set up at home. My kneazle business already had one set up here in the office, the clerk had already put the post for it on the counter by the time I reached them, but I decided I wanted one for my personal correspondence. At least, that’s how I explained it to the clerk who gladly showed me the latest post box with all sorts of enchantments on it.

As I left with my purse a good bit lighter, I made my way down towards Gringotts. There was something that I had never tried to do with the goblins that I believed I should give a try. In many ways Gringotts was a bank, but in others they were a company built from a single country. Banking was simply the most commonly utilized and advertised service of Gringotts, they liked encouraging the economy in most of the magical world, the better the economy the more the gold flowed after all. Making my way slowly up the stairs, I found myself overcome with emotion. In the young life I had lived before, this was a huge landmark and I momentarily had trouble believing that I was truly here even though in my older life I had made this journey many times before. It was a disconcerting feeling, to feel two different ways about the same place. My memories of both lives were mixed, but the emotional resonance of them did not always seem to be in harmony.

I dropped further into my persona to make up for the disharmony and timidly made my way through to Gringotts proper, eventually up to a teller. I explained that I wanted the book of services and the teller attempted to get me to pay a whole galleon for it. I talked him down to fifteen sickles and he gave me a toothy smile before handing me my own copy of Gringotts Offered Services. I carefully placed the thick volume in my bag and made my way back out.

I walked a while before using the exit at Carkitt Market to wander into the sleepy muggle world. It was the day after Boxing Day and many were still not up and about, but that would be alright. This was mostly about information gathering and I was more than capable of a little bit of that without calling attention to myself. I spent several hours in London going through various resources before breaking for tea. I had a plethora of choices and would need to whittle it down to a more manageable number somehow. I went through it all while nibbling at a dry sandwich and sipping some watery tea.

I returned to Diagon Alley for my pick up with the Knight Bus. The ride home was more or less the same, but I chatted up a young man that looked like he was on his way to the office. There was no reason to suddenly stop the activities I had done before, in fact suddenly stopping might lead to questions that I was not ready to answer. Finally arriving just a short bit away from where I had been picked up earlier, I shuffled back to my house with a nod or two in the directions of others who were just making their way out for the day.

At home once more, I made myself comfortable and set the kettle on for a warming cuppa. The cold of winter was bothering me more than it had a right to and I was thinking longingly of potions that would help me with such issues. Settling in I finished up the correspondence for Karing Kneazles, my kneazle breeding business, before moving on to caring for the kneazles themselves. They did mostly look after themselves, but they needed brushings and training for whomever might purchase them as familiars. In addition, I needed to maintain my bond with the five or so who were my neighborhood spies.

Mr Tibbels was definitely the ringleader amongst my little agents. He and the others made regular rounds of Little Whinging. They had been trained to identify the use of magics and what apparation and disapparition meant. As part kneazles they would blend into their surroundings easily enough that they could both watch and report on Harry’s movements as well as any unusual magic in the neighborhood.

It was late in the evening and I was mapping out my plans, when a chime sounded that startled both me and all of the cats. It was my post box, so charmed to let me know when I had received a letter. Going over to the little wooden box and opening it revealed flowing script in a familiar hand. I had, of course, written to Albus to let him know what had happened the day before Christmas. It would be stupid not to, he would find out eventually and ask even more questions about why I hadn’t informed him. Opening the letter with a bit of trepidation I found nothing more than a note wishing me well and to not be too hard on myself. I huffed at the slight condescension in the wording. Did Albus forget that nearly three quarters of the personality I presented to the world was fiction? Or was he so caught up in his own fictions that he had started to forget reality? Or perhaps so worried about mail tampering that he would reply in this fashion? As though I would ever put anything interesting or sensitive in the owl post, honestly.

I hadn’t worried about any spells or compulsions that might be placed on the letter as the post office had provided the service of weeding out any letters with such things on them and then, for an additional fee, they would dismantle them. I had acted very caught up in the sales pitch and bought every add on, seeming to think it a bargain for someone like myself. After a letter had been scrutinized by the post office they slipped it into a box that was the twin to the one I was holding and the letter moved from one box to the next like a vanishing cabinet. I could send a letter back the same way without worrying about having an owl myself. It was a convenient, if expensive, method of communicating with the magical world. It also had the added benefit of being fairly private. Owls could be captured, after all, as they left or came from an address. But capturing my specific owl from the dozens of post office owls as they left a place that had a flurry of winged activity all day long? That wasn’t quite as easy.

It was late and I had been sitting for a long time going over plans again so I decided that this letter was my cue for a break. I had decided that I would clean out and do up the house. I didn’t have to completely do away with the little old lady persona that had influenced the decor, I just didn’t want it to be quite so strong. The lingering smells of cat and cabbage had to go as well. I spent some time trying to figure out where the smell of cabbage had come from and found that the crochet covers I had on the furniture had somehow soaked up the smell. I didn’t have any sentimental attachment to the covers, so I didn’t mind giving them a good wash and then donating them to a second hand shop in town with anything else muggle that I was going to remove in my cleaning. I had a plan to do most of the cleaning myself and then call on the Dursleys to see if they might lend me their nephew to help with the labor of it all. This way I could bring Harry over to my house with the Dursleys believing that he was going to have a horrible time. It really was the only way they allowed the poor child to do anything at all. But that would have to wait until I had built up a few more foundations to my plan. Specifically I needed to heal myself up, get ahold of a potion or two, and find a good muggle solicitor.

Everything was taken out of cupboards and off of shelves before a thorough scrub was done of every flat surface in the lower level of the house. Boxes were brought out and nearly half of the things from the level were put away in them. It was long tedious work, interrupted by kittens wanting attention and the occasional break from tiredness that came on too soon.

In the end my kitchen, sitting room, and dining room/cat room were nearly emptied of a large assortment of things that I had no attachment to and no use for anymore. Since I had already decided to stop breeding cats as a business I would regain the use of my converted dining room, which was currently taken over by cat scratching posts and soft baskets for all of the seventeen cats to enjoy. I considered turning it into a library or an office as I had no real need for a formal dining room when I had a perfectly comfortable kitchen table and no guest over the age of twelve to entertain. The few children I would sit for hardly needed a formal dining experience at the batty old cat lady’s house and the few adults I had over were usually there for a quick spot of tea and gone again soon after. The charity boxes piled up high against the wall in my sitting room, too many for an old lady to take by herself. Perhaps there was a service that would come to the house?

After showering off all the sweaty grime and feeding the cats I settled into my bed tired, but content with my work throughout the day. I had finished half the clean out of my house in one day and that was quite the achievement given I kept having to pause to regain my strength. I would certainly feel that in the morning.

Today had been a good planning day with a few things actually getting done. The post was taken care of and many letters had been sent out. My home was looking a great deal better. And I had been able to make more plans for how to help Harry. One of those things I had planned out was how to study up to get my brewer’s license and certification. I had nearly had it before, but that was a little over a decade ago. With that I would be able to open up a little home brewery selling common potions and unctions. The plan was to start with pet based products and move out to garden based ones, to give myself a greater variety. This would take up less of my time and still provide me with plenty of spending money before I got my bigger projects underway. Tomorrow would be another big day of planning and cleaning, but hopefully some replies would be coming from the different people I had contacted.

Chapter 5: The Boy Who Lived

Chapter Text

28 December 1984

The morning came and with it the expected aches and pains of doing a lot of physical labor with a body that was not quite equipped for it. With that thought, I rose and added exercise plans to my mounting pile of paper. Deciding to take it easy, I took care of grooming and training the cats before doing much of anything else. Eventually, I settled in with some tea and toast to read the letters in my post box. It seemed that there were quite a few expertly recommended brewers out there who could easily make the potions I wanted, but it would cost quite a bit from any of them. I suppose you get what you pay for, I thought as I set those letters aside. Though fixing myself up with the potions would probably be the longest of my long term plans, I had expected to have to wait quite a long time on getting the potions. The recommendations from the St Mungo’s healer were obviously very good.

Most of the answers had been affirmatives, but there was one that indicated it would not be wise for a squib to use the potions recommended for eye health. They stated that while the potions could work to correct vision issues in the young, most of the problems with older eyes could only be corrected with a potion that used something of the patient from their youth. A lock of hair or a few drops of blood worked best, but most people did not take such things and keep them so long any more. It simply wasn’t fashionable to do so in this day and age. The brewer recommend an optical specialist on Horizant Alley that could fit me with glasses to help correct any issues.

Excepting for the one denial, I was in good straights as far as my health plan went for now. I would have potions to help heal damage to my overall health as well as ones specifically for bone health, vitamin and mineral deficiency, hair health, skin vitality, metabolic rate assistance, and muscle growth. The last of those two were important if I was to gain the physical strength that I really should have. With the combinations of these potions, exercise, and some better eating habits that I remembered from my younger yet future days, I could look ten years younger than my actual age. I would look significantly younger than the age I pretended to be most of the time.

In addition, this meant that I now had access to high level brewers who would make these same potions for a child. Harry was horribly underfed and had been routinely beaten. His eye health was abominable and his bones were no doubt brittle. He would need quite the work up to get him to a truly healthy point. As much as I would have prefered to take him to a true healer, there probably wasn’t one in all of Britain that wouldn’t report the visit of the Boy Who Lived to Albus and that could not happen.

I sent off a letter to the optical specialist through my post box, as well as money orders to pay for my first month’s worth of potions, and then got to work on cleaning the lower level of the house again. With so many furry animals it needed twice daily cleaning to really keep it clean. Then I started on the bigger chore of the upper level. While Privet Drive had houses that were mostly three bedroom plus office on the upper level, Wisteria Walk held significantly smaller homes. My home had one master and one guest bedroom with a bath shared between them. Unfortunately, every odd and end of muggle origin that I had ever obtained had somehow made its way into the guest room. I spent countless hours going over each and every item to see if it should be kept or donated as well as making sure it was actually muggle.

Over the course of the afternoon the boxes of things to keep got smaller and the boxes to go to charity got higher. I paused a time or two for some nibbles and something to drink, but I wanted to get it all sorted in one day so I was back to it before long. I started to take the charity boxes down the stairs to join the others along the sitting room wall, but after a time I felt too weak to do so without risking injury and simply piled them up along the upstairs hall.

It was well after the evening meal by the time that I had completed my task to my liking. I felt the day was fairly successful with all of the work done. There was still much to be done, but I was so tired that I simply completed my evening routine and went to sleep.

Exceedingly late that night, a point where none but the no good stirred, I was woken when a whirring chime sounded throughout my whole house. Then it sounded again. And then again. It was with groggy eyes and tired body that I sat up and tried to remember what the noise meant. I threw on my clothes and pushed my feet into my slippers trying to force my brain to work. It took me stumbling down the stairs to remember that the noise meant Harry was not inside his relative’s house by a decent hour. I threw on my overcoat and tied my flyaway hair under a scarf before grabbing my purse and heading to the door. I was once more out on the streets as the little old cat lady who needed another tin of cat food from the corner market. Though how I would explain that away when the market was closed at this awful time of night didn’t worry me. I’m a crazy old cat lady after all.

Little paws stepped around me as little voices whispered to me through magic and we set off in search of a missing Harry Potter. The first place to check, of course, was the Dursleys. It was lucky that we found him. It was cold enough that the snow and ice was still on the ground and the poor child didn’t have a coat over his ratty clothing. I almost thought him dead when I got there as he was curled up in a ball and so deathly pale. The cats pawed at him and I pretended to call to them as though I was trying to get them to come home, before finally walking up to him. I woke him as gently as I could, calling his name and brushing his hair away. When he stirred I started pulling him up to stand and he acquiesced with no resistance.

We made our sluggish way back to my house where I set him on the couch and began piling blankets and kneazles on him. I then double checked that all of my plans and magical things had made their way back to my closet. I popped the kettle on and made up several sandwiches, knowing he probably hadn’t eaten all day. I raced up to my bath and filled the tub with lukewarm water, not hot as that could actually burn someone with frostbite. Harry was still groggy and sluggish when I came back down, but he was less pale. I took him up the stairs, with him leading the way so that in his woozy state I could push him upwards or catch him if he fell.

Ever so slowly I got him into the bath, the warm water shocking him a bit more awake. I murmured calming, soothing things to him about how it would be alright as he worked his way into the tub. I made sure he laid all the way down so that the water covered him entirely, but didn’t inhibit his breathing. I grabbed a pitcher I kept under the sink and began slowly pouring the water over the spots of his chest that weren’t quite covered. I didn’t want to risk filling the bath more as he was already uncomfortable having his head in the water.

For a time this was all we did. As his skin got back a bit of a healthy flush, I went for a large towel and rolled it big. I had him sit up and put the rolled towel along the top of the tub under the water. His little noise of worry let me know that he was thinking a bit more clearly and I explained to him that he would have to turn around the other way too. He shifted onto his knees and then onto his stomach with his face perched up on the wet warm towel, but above the water itself. I poured more warm water over his back and the back of his legs. He relaxed into this treatment for a while. I left for a bit and came back with a long shirt and some old pyjama bottoms. Neither would fit him, but they would be soft and warm against his skin.

Getting him out of the bath was a little more difficult as he was awake and thinking enough to be embarrassed, but too tired and young for me to leave him to do it on his own. We managed in the end and a dry and dressed Harry Potter was bundled back up on my sitting room couch. I took out the sandwiches I’d fixed, poured some cooling tea for him and made my way back to the couch. He ate every morsel. I had to slow him down a few times and emphasize how important it was to not over extend his fragile stomach, but he ate every bite and had three cups of tea. I didn’t have a bed for him to sleep on, but I made up the couch with some pillows and waited as he fell off to a restful sleep. I went up to bed myself, carrying my post box with me, and left the kneazles to keep guard over the Boy Who Lived to nearly die of hypothermia.

29 December 1984

Knowing that Petunia Dursley was the type of woman to be up for the milkman, I set an alarm to wake me very early. I had only managed a few hours of sleep total and was still sore all over from the workout cleaning had given me yesterday. As I dressed I thought through my plans, I had wanted to engage with Harry in a week or so when I had more things set up. Now I would have to change plans I had only just set into motion. It might work out better this way, but it was the way with a higher risk of being caught by Albus as well as a higher risk of the Dursleys realizing that their favorite punching bag wasn’t in as much misery as he should be. There wasn’t anything for it though, it would have to be done.

It wasn’t even a true morning yet, as far as I was concerned, but my post box already had my first month supply of potions in it. I carefully took them out, read the directions, took the prescribed doses, and then hid them away in my closet. I was a bit amazed that my potions had come through the very day after sending payment, but if it was the brewer’s bread and butter they were likely to have extra on hand for just such an order. Downstairs I tiptoed into the kitchen and set about making some tea and toast. Harry was still asleep, covered in heaps of blankets and at least three cats.

When the table was set I made sure to put on my old cat lady persona before waking him up. Even though I was gentle, he still startled awake. No doubt worried about another beating.

“It’s alright, Harry. I know you’ve had a bit of a frightful night dear, but you look like you’re doing well, hmm?” I smiled my grandmotherly smile, my shoulders hunched to give me a slouch and my knees bent a bit to give me even less height. Harry looked around wide eyed and bewildered. “Can you tell me what happened?”

He looked down at his hands, his face flushing scarlet and didn’t answer me at all. He looked on the verge of tears. “That’s alright, dear. Perfectly fine. But you’re going to have some toast with me now and then we will talk some more, hmm?”

He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what was happening, but he let me lead him to the kitchen table in my slow crooked shuffle. We ate in silence and I watched him all the while. It was obvious now that he expected for the Dursleys to punish him for this too. I was going to have to throw caution to the wind and try to explain things to a child. That was going to be a very difficult and delicate task that I had not prepared myself to do. Especially at such an awful hour in the morning and after he had suffered yet another trauma.

After two cups of tea and several slices of toast heaped with marmalade, it was time to get right into it and hope for the best. I pushed my plate aside and poured us both another cuppa, even if just to have something for our hands. Smiling kindly I spoke in a soft wavering voice, “Did the Dursleys lock you out on purpose Harry?”

He looked down at his cup, his mouth pinched shut so tight it screwed up his whole face. Eventually though, after what appeared to be a lot of hard and difficult thought, he whispered, “Yes. I dropped the plate and wasn’t to be allowed in to ruin more of their holiday.”

That definitely sounded like something Petunia or Vernon would yell at him. He had obviously taken it to heart, perhaps repeating it to himself as he slowly froze. Only monsters let monsters get away with such things. Punishing the Dursleys hadn’t even been on my list yet, it was much more important to start with protecting him from them first.

“They aren’t very nice people. They don’t do very nice things. That doesn’t mean that you are bad. They wouldn’t be very nice to anyone,” I told him as firmly as I possibly could. It was important that he not think their meanness and cruelty was his fault. He didn’t really look like he believed me. At that moment punishing the Dursleys not only went on my list, but also made its way up to the top of it.

“Do you know that there are shows on the telly that aren’t real?”

His face swung up to meet mine, his knitted eyebrows hidden beneath his long hair as he tried to understand such a change in the conversation. He couldn’t seem to work out a response, so I tried again, “There are shows that look like they are really happening. Like Coronation Street looks very real doesn’t it? It doesn’t have aliens or monsters stomping through. But those people are actors who play pretend, they act out the stories of someone else.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Harry had begun to nod. It was a good thing that he seemed to understand acting at least as far as it was playing pretend. He was only four and a half after all. I very much doubted he had ever been able to really play pretend with the Dursleys either, but he probably pretended in his boot cupboard during the long dark hours alone. And here I was going to take him for another swing in the conversation now that he had that concept figured.

“Do you know what a spy is, Harry? During the wars we had lots of spies. People came from allied countries to train up with our Special Operations to help out. They became spies and the codebreakers at Bletchley.” He was looking at me like he had no idea where this was going, but he at least thought it sounded interesting. It almost made me laugh, but it was more important now than ever to keep my persona firmly on. “Spies would go out and pretend to be other people in order to get information to help us win the war. People these days, they think of James Bond,” he lit up at the mention of someone he knew. “But really the best spies were people that no one would look twice at, not handsome devil may care types like Bond, James Bond.” Harry gave a little laugh at my impression of the super suave spy’s catch phrase.

“Do you know who some of the best spies were?” At little shake of his head I continued, “The women were often the best spies. Men forget about us you see? They don’t think of us as important or threatening. And so we often slip right through, like we were invisible,” I finished with a quaky flourish of jazz hands. As he smiled and huffed a little laugh I creakily got up out of my chair and shuffled an awkward shuffle to the sink to refill the kettle. Then I slowly and carefully carried the kettle back to heat up yet more cups of tea for us to stare at later. After that I walked my favored crooked walk over to the table and leaned one arm on the back of a chair. The performance must have taken nearly five minutes and Harry had fidgeted for three of them, probably thinking he should offer to help but not wanting to get in trouble.

I looked him in the eyes and smiled my soft smile and then I let the persona fall away. My smile got higher and sharper, my back and knees straightened, my posture changed to a strong, if relaxed repose with one arm still casually draped over the chair. His eyes were getting wider and wider as he watched the change, but when I spoke and my voice was clear and low instead of the wispy, raspy softness he nearly fell from his chair, “Harry I’m a spy.”

He looked like nothing cooler had ever happened to him in his entire life. His wide eyes somehow comically huge, his mouth hanging open, and his chair was pushed away from the table when he’d nearly fallen over. In my normal voice, I repeated some of the things I said before. “Spies are just people who play pretend and the best spies are the spies that can become invisible to everyone else. That way they can get the information they need to protect people.”

I pulled my chair over from the opposite end of the table to right next to him. “I want to teach you how to do that so that we can keep you safe. Would you like to learn?”

“Ye–yes I want to,” came rushing out of him in an earnest whisper. Did he ever speak louder than a whisper? What else did the Dursleys do to make him always speak so quietly?

“Then there are some things that you are going to have to learn very quickly this morning because I think we both know that the Dursleys are going to try and blame you for what happened.” He nodded sadly, but then looked up at me hopefully. “The Dursleys want you to be miserable so the first thing that you are going to learn is how to act as miserable as possible as convincingly as possible.” Now the nodding was earnest. “The next thing we will do is work on looking like you don’t want something that you actually want, because you look very happy for a little boy who needs to convince mean people that you are actually miserable.”

Harry pouted at that, but I ruffled his hair and we got to work. I took him through several different methods that I had developed as a spy over nearly a decade and a half of work that I had done for the Order. They were based off of different acting methods, surely, but each had my own spin to it. After an hour, I called a halt to the acting classes and had him get dressed in his own clothes. Or rather his cousin’s clothes that he was permitted to wear.

The plan for taking him back was simple. If the door was unlocked then I would knock on it and Harry would pretend to open it from the inside. If the door was locked then I would knock on it and distract Petunia while Harry slipped around the back to be let in later or to get in through a possibly open door. Luck was on our side, the door was unlocked.

With Harry positioned just beside it, I rapped on the door and he pretended to open it and greet me with much displeasure. “Oh, ‘ello Mrs Figg.”

There was a screeching from the kitchen that could only be the lady of the house. “Good morning Harry, you were just the person I was hoping to speak with,” I said in my wavering, elderly voice. I didn’t get any further however as Petunia was suddenly at the door, her claw like hand grasping Harry’s bony shoulder and pulling him sharply back.

“Mrs Figg, it’s a bit early to be dropping by,” disdain dripped from every word to slip from Petunia's thin pale lips.

“Of course, dear, only I was hoping to borrow your young nephew. I’m having a bit of a clear out and it’s gotten a bit much for me. I’m sure you’re busy with parties and such as the young crowd do, but I was hoping to get a start on my new year resolution. Would you mind terribly if I borrow him for the weekend? It would keep such a young one out of your hair and be of such a great help for an old lady.”

Petunia gave me a long cold stare as though she were doing mental mathematics of how much Harry would hate this chore and how good it might make her look to the neighbors. Things fell in our favor when I mentioned, “I don’t have an extra bed in my guest room though, the storage of things has gotten a bit out of control there, but I’m sure such a young lad wouldn’t mind kipping on the floor. The cats are very friendly.” And then Harry, fast learner that he was, gave a whiny huff to trick his aunt into thinking he hated the idea.

Face transformed by a menacing smile, Petunia gave her blessings and sent Harry off for a change of clothes before he was allowed to totter back to my home alongside me. When we reached the house he collapsed on the couch and was silent for a moment, but before long giggle fits hit him and refused to stop. He got up and literally jumped around, he was so giddy and excited. I just smiled at him, so much for a well deserved nap. Maybe we could get some sleep later in the afternoon.

Harry and I talked about all the things he would need to learn for several hours. Then we talked about ways to trick the Dursleys out of hurting him. But finally, around lunch time, we needed to talk about magic.

Harry was happily dipping his toasted cheese sandwich into a bit of tomato soup when I gathered up my courage and started the minefield laden conversation as gently as I could manage. “Do you understand that the Dursleys are bad people that want to hurt you, Harry?”

Harry breathed in a deep breath of someone much older who was barely holding on to their patience, “Yes, Mrs Figg. We already talked ‘bout it. They are mean people who do mean things because they are mean. I’m not mean.”

“Exactly. But do you understand that they are trying to hurt you in ways beyond hitting you? You mentioned the frying pan and when your uncle hit you, but you didn’t mention how little food you get. That’s a way to be mean to you too.”

“Freaks don’t deserve more food.”

“Words are just another way to hurt people. Just another way for them to hurt you. You are a special little boy Harry Potter, there isn’t another like you in the whole wide world. You are not a freak.” I looked him right in the eye, trying my best to force him to believe what I was saying and knowing that it would never be that easy. Even getting him out of such a place so young, he would probably always struggle with the mental and emotional damage they had done to him.

Harry looked down and fiddled with the crust on his sandwich, not saying anything. We ate for a bit more in silence as I wanted to give him some space to understand what we had spoken about. When he seemed more calm than pensieve I started again. “Do you think the Dursleys would lie to you if they thought it would hurt your feelings?”

He looked up at me startled, as though the thought of the Dursleys lying about something hadn’t occurred to him. “They lie to you when you need food or clothes. They call you names that aren’t true too. Do you think they would lie about other things if they thought that it would hurt you? Or if they thought that it would keep you from having something that you might want or might like?” Harry had begun to pale and looked a little sickly as he started to take this in, he put the remains of his sandwich back on the plate and wrung his hands together. I pushed his cup of milky tea towards him and motioned for him to drink. This poor kid, my heart ached, things were just so awful for him. I resolved to get things done much sooner so that I could free him from the monsters earlier.

After awhile, his breathing slowed and he wasn’t nervously gulping down his tea. “Mrs Figg? What do you think the Dursleys lied ‘bout?”

I was amazed at his ability to make such cognitive leaps. That was several year milestones before it really should have happened. He took my hesitation as confirmation that he was right. “They did, didn’t they?” he cried. “What did they lie ‘bout? What else could they have been mean ‘bout?” Great big tear drops were welling up in his eyes, but refusing to fall. So much for gently, I thought a little ruefully.

“I knew your parents Harry.”

It was as though the world stopped spinning for the too small boy at my kitchen table. He took a deep breath in, trying to calm himself, and his little fingers clenched into shaking fists and then, and then…

SNAP!

All of my kitchen cabinets suddenly imploded. And it was a lucky thing that they did too, because if they had exploded we would have been impaled by wood shards. The sudden accidental magic had the effect of allowing Harry to more easily gain control of himself. He stared at the imploded cabinetry for a long time, all the while I looked calmly at him. When he whipped back around to stare at me in shock he was met with a cool calm gaze and an amused smirk. “Yeah, your dad used to do that too.”

Harry just blinked at me.

“Your mum and dad were magic, Harry, and so are you. I worked with them in a secret society called The Order of the Phoenix. There was a war on in the magical world and we were working to help people when the Ministry of Magic couldn’t get off their well bribed arses and do something." I breathed a bit to try and calm myself.

“Your mother was what’s called a muggleborn,” I explained a bit more calmly. “She was someone with active magic born to a family that had none. When someone is born to a family with magic, but can’t use a wand with active magic they are called a squib.”

I pointed to myself, “I’m a squib. My parents and siblings and grandparents and cousins all have active magic. It means they can use wands. But I don’t have the ability to do that. And your father, he was a pureblood, he came from a family where witches and wizards only married other witches and wizards for generations.”

I paused for a moment trying to give him time to absorb all this before continuing on, “When people with active magic are little, muggleborn or pureblood it doesn’t matter, they have what’s called ‘accidental magic’ where things happen– like kitchen cabinets implode because a little wizard gets very upset.” I gave him a smile again to make sure he knew I wasn’t worried about it. Then I doubled down on the sentimental in the hopes he would come out of this conversation more happy than traumatized, “Would you like to see some pictures of your parents?”

A gasp and vigorous nodding followed by a, “Yes, please!” was all it took to get me up from the table. I held out my hand to him and he took it. I thought that was a wonderful improvement, he would never have had such physical contact before. I brought him to the hidden closet and situated him right in front of it.

“Now there is something called The Statute of Secrecy. It basically says that the muggles, people without magic, aren’t to know anything about magic and magical people. So I’ve hidden my magical things away in this closet,” I said as I grandly showed off a bare piece of wall. He looked at me like I was crazy and I laughed. “It’s magic Harry! You can’t see it unless I help you because the door is keyed into me alone. Go ahead and touch the wall though.”

He moved up close and felt the wall where I had pointed before backing away with a frown. “There’s nothing there,” he murmured under his breath.

“Try feeling for the door again, but instead of feeling for something that is solid like a door feel for the magic of the door. Put your hand right there, yes and then close your eyes because your eyes are lying to you. Now feel from your center, is there something there? Something like you felt when you had your accidental magic?”

Harry scrunched up his face and bit at his lip, concentrating with all his might, before gasping, “It is there! Like a soft curtain.”

“Very good. Now put your hand back on the door and then I’m going to touch you and the door at the same time. That will let you see the physical door.”

As I revealed the closet door to him I watched his face closely, this was his introduction to magic. This was when magic would become real for Harry Potter. It was the right thing to do, no matter what Albus tried to convince me. We wandered into the little room and I went over to my photos, there was an album here that I hadn’t looked at in a very long time. It had Harry’s parents in it, along with so many other dead.

We sat on the floor and flipped through the pictures. I told him all the good stories about the people in the Order. About the Prewett brothers and the McKinnons having a pranking contest with his father and Sirius Black. About how Dorcas Meadows would sing to herself as she went about her tasks, even if it was in a fight, and all she would ever reply was that she had a tune stuck in her head. He asked why I wasn’t in the pictures I pointed to and I explained that I was the one taking the picture and bumped his shoulder as I reminded him that a good spy remains invisible. I told him about the sweetness of the Longbottoms and how Alice was such a good friend to his mother. How I had heard his father worry that his son might have the same explosive accidental magic that he had as a child. On and on I went until I was tired and sad.

“It was a war and people died fighting it. The people the Order stood against were called Death Eaters and they were led by a wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort." I didn't flinch at the name. I would not give the monster the satisfaction, but my memories of my young life had also told me that it wasn't even his name. Why fear the made up name of an angsty teen, no matter what evil he had done later he was still the spotty teen going by an anagram.

"He was so powerful and so terrifying that even now the people of magical Britain are afraid of saying Lord Voldemort, they say things like You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He was a monster who led a blood war to kill muggles and muggleborns. The people in the Order put their faith in another powerful wizard. His name is Albus Dumbledore.”

I pointed Albus out in a few of the pictures so he would be able to put a face to the name. “There came a time when Lord Voldemort, or the Dark Lord, started targeting Order families. Your family and the Longbottom family were of particular interest to him and his Death Eaters. The Longbottom boy was born just days before you were. Neville is his name. Your parents had already gone into hiding when your mother was pregnant, your father barely leaving Lily and supplies were secreted to them so it couldn’t be tracked." Harry turned the pages of the album again. Wondering, roving fingers skimmed over pictures of his parents.

"But after you were born is when Voldemort began his hunt in earnest. Your parents were convinced to use a special, powerful charm that would hide their cottage. Rather like how I hide my door, but even more powerful. The fidelius charm would create a secret around the house and only the secret keeper would know where it was. People would completely forget that the cottage ever existed. Neighbors would walk right past the place where their home was and not see a thing. Only the secret keeper could tell someone the secret, and only then could that person see the house. Does that make sense to you Harry?”

“They hid the house from bad guys and only one person knew the secret.” He whispered it with such an odd monotone that I worried that perhaps I should stop. But I had committed to this path and I would take it. He would need to understand the dangers.

“That’s right. There were two people that your parents would choose from, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. A week after the incantation had been cast, Voldemort attacked your home.” Harry shuddered and I put an arm against him as he traced and retraced the contours of his parents in the photo before him.

“No one really knows what happened. We do know that the killing curse, which flashes a bright green light, was used three times. We know that your father died first. We know that your mother died beside your crib.” He was sniffling now, but I pressed onward, “And we know that some powerful magic was invoked when he tried to kill you, because all that was left of him was his clothes and a pile of ashes.” At this Harry looked up at me with a surprised expression.

“I killed him?”

“A lot of people think that you were the one to defeat him. But I think your mother set him up, probably had something planned in case all else failed. She was an incredibly powerful witch as well as being one of the most clever people I have ever met. And I know something that those people, the average witch or wizard on the street, doesn’t know." He looked over to me, morose and hesitant. "I know why you were sent to live with your muggle aunt.”

“Why?” came the shocked, wide eyed question.

“Mother’s magic. Your mother wove protections so tight into you that no Death Eater or Dark Lord can find you or hurt you with magic. Her sacrifice for you, so that you could live, protects you from them even now.”

“But I thought I defeated him?”

“With their master a pile of ash the Death Eaters were, mostly, rounded up and sent off to Azkaban. That’s the wizarding prison, a horrible place guarded by creatures called Dementors. They suck out all happiness and sanity from a person and leave nothing but a crazy husk behind. But many of the Death Eaters were politically influential people or very, very rich and they said that they had been forced to do those things against their will. Some even claimed to have been under the unforgivable curse Imperious.”

“So they’re still out there?”

“Yes.”

“But mum’s magic is still protecting me from them?”

“Yes. But you should think of it as needing a top up every once and a while. Your aunt is your mother’s closest blood relative and when she took you into her home and agreed that you would stay, it sealed the magic. As long as you both believe that her home is your home you will continue to carry the protection of your mother’s sacrifice for you.”

Harry looked back down at the photo of his parents. He was rapidly blinking and fidgeting his fingers on the corners of the album that was sitting across our laps. “But if I run away and stay with you then the magic doesn’t work anymore?”

“That’s right.” I really needed to pick up a child development book, he was leaps and bounds ahead of where I thought he should be at under five years old. He was making logical connections that might make more sense if he was eight or so but not four and a half. I had only ever been exposed to children in either life in a very tertiary hand them back to their parents kind of way and was more than a bit out of my comfort zone.

“So how’re we gonna stop the Dursleys from being mean to me then? If I can’t go no where?”

“We are going to find as many loopholes as possible. You are going to work on your acting and sneaking. And I was thinking we could get the Dursleys to ignore you completely, make you invisible to them. You would still live there, your aunt would still think you lived there, but they would never be able to see you.”

“You can turn me invisible?!” Apparently, this was exciting enough to get over the idea of never being able to truly leave the Dursleys as well as the morbid discovery of how his parents actually died. Children were strange creatures.

“Very few things have the ability to be truly invisible, rather it’s about making someone so unnoticeable that they become invisible. Like the door to my closet. We could make the door to your cousin’s second bedroom invisible to everyone else but you and they would never be able to open it because they wouldn’t even know that it was there. And I know that the Dursleys have that useless attic space that every other house on Privet has, we can use expansion charms to make it taller and wider so that you can have more room. There’s a lot that we can do. Of course, I can’t cast those charms myself since I can’t use a wand. But there are ways to hire out for that sort of thing.”

I looked into this child's face, so full of hope and wonder, and realized that this was the hard part. I had thought telling him of the war and the death would be the most difficult part, but I was wrong. So terribly wrong. I had to tell him, he needed to be prepared, but I absolutely did not want to tell him this terrible truth. I looked away and swallowed hard.

“The last tough thing we will talk about tonight is Albus Dumbledore. We all answered to him, all of us in the Order, we followed his direction and we did it because we thought he knew best. Maybe he did, it’s difficult to know, even all these years later. War is not so black and white Harry, though I expect you won’t understand that until you’re much older. But after Voldemort was defeated and Dumbledore left you with your Aunt, he sent me here to spy on you and guard you." I took a deep calming breath that came out as more a shaky sigh than anything else.

"Should anything happen I was to give a report to him. And I have reported to him about you. About how awful the Dursleys have been. Do you remember those photos I took a while back of the bruises? I showed them to him. I told him you needed protection from the people inside the house too. And he decided we should do nothing. His orders are to not interfere with how the Dursleys treat you and to not ever let you know that magic is real.” I swallowed again, trying to push down on the bubbling emotions, a mix of grief, disappointment, and anger that swelled with every word.

“Does he not like me too,” came the harsh whisper from a boy too small and too often beaten down. It didn’t even sound like a question, though he had phrased it as such. It sounded like a certainty, like he believed the whole world wouldn’t like him just because he existed. My heart was breaking over the quiet certainty of coming cruelty that no one should expect, least of all a child.

“I don’t know luv,” I was near crying as I pulled his slight frame closer to me in a tight hug. “I don’t understand what he is thinking. He might believe what he is doing is best, to keep you safe from worse people than the Dursleys. But if he isn’t keeping you safe from them, then he isn’t giving you much of a chance at anything else. The whole magical world is convinced that Dumbledore has secreted you away somewhere and is personally training you. He hasn’t done anything to stop the rumors.”

“Why would the world care? I’m just… me?”

I huffed out a little laugh and gave him a squeeze, “The day that Voldemort vanished, 31 October 1981, was a day that much of magical Britain was freed from terror. Your mum stopped the biggest, baddest, meanest monster from hurting any more people. But because you were the one who lived it was you who people celebrated. No one had ever lived through an attack once You-Know-Who decided to kill them, but you did. And ever since then people have celebrated The Boy Who Lived, you.”

He looked a bit shell shocked and quizzical, but there wasn’t much I could do to help with that as I really didn’t understand the phenomena myself. Obviously, it wasn’t the baby who defeated a fully grown wizard. Obviously, the killing curse didn’t “rebound” as the killing curse didn’t turn a body to ash. But the public had decided it was Harry that they wanted to latch on to and it was decidedly odd to me.

“What I need you to take away from all of this is that there are followers of a very bad man who would want to hurt you because they blame you for their master being defeated.” I turned to see his bright green eyes and with a very serious look I continued, “And that one of the most powerful wizards in the entire world, certainly the most powerful here in Britain, would never want me to tell you any of this or stop the Dursleys from hurting you. If he or anyone else found out that we were doing this it would put both of us in a lot of danger. Do you understand?”

“Yeah–Yes, I understand. It’s a big secret from everybody. Just for us two, me an’ you.”

“Good.” I sighed, my joints hurt. “I think that’s enough for tonight. Let’s get off this floor and get something to eat, I’m starving.”

Late that night, with Harry tucked in on the couch, a cat or two guarding him, I wrote a letter to Albus. I carefully measured every word and made sure to keep it light and even amusing. I told him how Petunia complained about having Harry underfoot as she set about hosting for a new year gathering and that I mentioned needing help with a charity run I was doing. In the end, I told him, Harry was staying the holiday weekend in my home and kipping in the sitting room. He was a big help with all the boxes, but not so much with my furnishings as a bit of accidental magic had brought down all my kitchen cabinets. I told Albus not to worry, I was going to replace them anyway. And because I was sure he was worried about Harry learning he had magic, I told him how I had expressed to Harry my belief that the cabinetry was falling apart and I knew that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

I was sure that it would satisfy any curiosity that Albus might have while at the same time serving as a normal report that he would expect after such an event. I put it in a small tube and closed it up before sending it through the floo. The tube had been an invention of his and could be opened only by the people inscribed on it saying the correct passcode. Any attempt to force open the tube through any means would disintegrate whatever was inside of it. The weight of it allowed for it to go through the floo network without getting lost or damaged. This was just one of the security measures for passing along sensitive information that we had used since before there had even been an official war.

I moved back to my plans. I had narrowed down my choices of solicitor and only needed to make appointments to meet with them. They were not going to be open for new clients during the holiday, of course, so I was working on crafting a sort of character sheet for the persona I would need to put on with them. I certainly couldn’t be the mad old woman from down the lane. I had to be someone slightly posh and absolutely in charge. I would need new clothing for this and for other characters that I would need to craft in order to sneak around behind Albus’ back.

After that, I was finally able to open the book from Gringotts and start reading about their services. Most of these services were things that the average wixen wouldn’t think about needing to know or utilize. The book was magically enhanced to hold more pages than appeared possible and it was slow going as I read through each service carefully, marking down interesting ones with their page numbers and cost in a new notebook that I had started just for this task. By the time I finally settled into bed I had filled dozens of pages with useful services and the average cost. I would worry over it more in the morning. I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Chapter 6: Against a rising tide of darkness

Chapter Text

31 December 1984

Harry and I had spent the thirtieth being as lazy as possible. We groomed and played with the kneazles and stacked up the boxes that were upstairs on top of the boxes that were already downstairs, but for the most part we watched telly and read books from my magical closet.

After the harsh, emotional tsunami that was the day before we both felt the need for a break. I planned to take him through his paces on acting again though, since he had a day to rest and recover. The more we worked on it the better it would be and the more effectively he could use it in a variety of situations.

We spent the day acting out different scenes and stories. I had him memorize a passage or two from a book to work on inflection. His intellectual abilities continued to be higher than I thought would be possible and he simply absorbed everything that I could give him and then asked for more. We played strategy games and worked through puzzles in order to develop his critical thinking skills while having a bit of fun.

But after all of that, we settled in and talked about what Harry wanted for his room. Having so little for as long as he could remember, I had expected him to want something fantastical. Instead, he simply wanted a safe place to play and another to sleep. He requested more books, though, especially ones on magic.

Through the use of my post box I ordered and paid for certain forms and a special quill, both of which arrived promptly. Some parts of the forms would need to be signed by Petunia, but others would be signed by Harry so I wanted to go over it with him.

I explained to him that it was basically an agreement that said I was allowed to represent him at Gringotts. I tried to educate him on the complex way in which I could be his financial guardian because Gringotts was not necessarily beholden to certain guardianship and majority laws laid out by the Ministry of Magic, but it looked like that part went over his head.

Harry practiced writing with a quill for several hours. Splattering ink and breaking more than a few as he tried to write out his name like I had in his example. It was to be expected that he would have difficulty holding something as delicate as a quill and I had plenty of extras so he might practice.

As Harry signed his name again in chunky childish script he asked, “Don’t I have to be a grownup to sign things?”

I informed him that while that was certainly true in the muggle world as well as for most things in the magical world, any dealings with Gringotts was different. Gringotts was a country all on its own and had its own laws. They liked it when children were smart enough to increase their gold, it harkened back to their fae roots when they would take in human children and teach them the goblin ways. They didn’t do that anymore, per the Goblin Treaty of… well, actually I don’t remember which one it was, but some time in the 12th or 13th century.

It was all a part of the guardianship and majority laws I tried to tell him about earlier. Harry just seemed to think this all very amusing and went back to practicing. In the end though he understood that his parents had left him money and properties and signing the paper would allow me to access them and use them for him. This money would mostly be used to pay for Harry’s room and a safe place here at my house as well as any legal fees necessary to get me some rights over Harry’s guardianship in the muggle world and future education or training.

Eventually, he had it down so that his name would look acceptable and the quill wouldn’t break. I had him sign the forms in all the right spots. The little sting on the back of his hand quickly soothed by the waiting murtlap essence. When one was not abusing a blood quill it did not cause lasting scars or deep cuts, however, I was sensitive to the fact that Harry had never really had someone look after any scrapes or soothe any hurts.

Most of his memories seemed to be of people being willfully cruel to him. I was acutely aware of all this when I asked him to cut himself open to sign something, as such, I over did it on the loving soothing that he should have received.

That night we celebrated the new year with toasts of fizzy cider and hope for a better year. We both had resolutions to keep, each one would be working towards keeping Harry safer, healthier, and happier. We sang merry songs and watched people celebrating all over the world. It wouldn’t be too long before we could celebrate a victory in this secret war, as we pushed back against the most powerful person in magical Britain without him ever even knowing.

3 January 1985

It was difficult for both of us when Harry had to return to the Dursleys. He had to be acting the entire time like he was the meek, beaten child he had been before I opened up the world to him. He had to cook and clean, and sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. He and I couldn’t be seen interacting as it would be odd for the old cat lady to seek him out after he had spent so long helping her organize her charity boxes. I spent nearly every waking moment working towards saving him from those monsters, and even moments when I probably should have been asleep.

On the first Thursday after the new year, I was able to get interviews with two of the solicitors on my list. I had very particular points that they had to meet and needed to ensure they would answer only to me. They needed to keep Harry secret and safe. I needed to be able to trust them above all else.

After the interviews, I went down to have a nice tea and mull things over. In my impeccable skirt suit and my confident walk, I would fit in for an afternoon tea in the kind of nice places I would usually avoid in my other persona. It was lovely to have a better blend and a comfortable chair instead of watery tea and hard plastic.

Both of the solicitors had dealt with difficult family cases and had seemed intelligent about their practice, confident in their ability to help set up a special guardianship. However, I could tell they were both leaning towards getting a court order invoked for guardianship. When I hinted at the abuse the child in question was suffering from they had both started talking about the court and how that process worked.

Unfortunately, taking the matter to court would not work for many, many reasons. Starting with the fact that I was not actually related in any way to Harry and then leading into the issue of it being so public everyone would know, especially Albus. In the end I decided to wait for the third interview before making any decisions.

I changed into my crazy cat lady clothes in a random public loo, coming out as a completely different person and walking out with a slow, shuffling gait. I took care of some business in the Alley, before catching the Knight Bus back to the outskirts of Little Whinging.

Arriving home, I found that the last of the supplies I needed were in my post box and I could begin brewing my potions immediately. For now my kitchen was an acceptable brewing space and I set about cleaning and clearing the area. The upper cabinetry and most of my dishware had been set out to the curb after having been blown to smithereens so it was not a great hardship to move the toaster and the kettle for more counter space.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reacquainting myself with potions. It had been so long since I brewed anything myself. I wanted to pretend that was the reason my hands shook and my breath would hitch. That it was just because too much time had past. That I was nervous about making a mistake. But that was just me lying to myself.

A dangerous thing for a spy to do, lie to themselves.

When the first potions were simmering gently, I sat on the couch and pulled a kneazle to me for comfort. I knew why I had stopped brewing. I knew that was the reason I was having trouble now. It was because everything about potions reminded me of her.

Being a squib had always allowed me direct access to ingredients as it was usually a squib that grew or raised the ingredients, and often one who prepared them as well. During a normal drop by to see my usual supplier I happened upon an unusual occurrence. A witch was there with my friend, trying to get the best of the best ingredients for some experimental potion she was going to brew. It was a curious sight for an actively magical person to be out here on the fringes and I took the time to give the witch a once over.

Her skin was a bronzey kind of brown that was well accented by the forest greens of her robes. And her short, sharp bob of tight curls cascaded out from under a small pointed plum hat that was sitting at a co*cky angle on her head. She was taller than both of us, not even taking into account the hat and the large amount of hair, but she was very thin. It was an odd thin, as usually one so thin might seem brittle but in this case she seemed strong and vibrant. She smiled as she haggled over ingredients, as though it were a happy pastime, showing a row of perfectly pearl teeth with a cupid’s bow of full lips framing them.

It was a different time then, people were happy and at peace following the defeat of Grindelwald. Most had no inkling of the rising power of Voldemort. Life was good and slow and kind. I was just into my twenties, just making my way into the world as an adult. My reputation as a kneazle breeder was well known and I had so many goals and lofty ideals. What I didn’t have, was someone to share things with and then there she was. We never knew the world could turn on us like it did, but then maybe the young never know. My life was changed from the moment I saw her, from the first introduction to this winsome witch, we were always meant to be together forever.

Always.

Our courtship, if you could call it that, was slow and shy. Neither of us very experienced, but both of us enthralled by the other. We started with things we knew the other liked to do and, of course, the first thing to come to mind was potions. We spoke of potions, we read about potions, we brewed potions. All of it together in concert with each other as we learned the steps of this dance we had never known before.

We branched out to other subjects and other pastimes, but my love was a potions master and it was her truest passion. She invented and perfected the highest level of potions. Potions that I would never be able to make because they required active magic, because they needed wands that could perform charms while brewing simultaneously. She studied my work in potions as a squib and encouraged me to get my brewer’s certification.

Passing that test would give me a standing in the brewing community, it would allow me to publish any research I did on potions or on how to brew as a squib in the peer journals. If I combined it with a brewing license then I would be able to sell potions as well. I put it off. I regret it now, all that time, all that could have been.

Our love grew and grew, surrounding us, connecting us, in its heady glow. A magic I never thought possible. We would dance and sing to the wireless as we brewed with kittens mewling in the background. We could sit silently reading for hours at a time and be perfectly content in each other’s company. Any time apart was a cold agony that would make us both listless and grey, as though the colors of the world were drained away until we could be with each other again.

The night that I proposed to her was nerve wracking. For some indefinable reason, even though I knew that her answer would be a resounding yes, I was nearing a breathless panic. Everything had to be perfect. Flowers were laid, small silver cauldrons decorated the area, music had been planned, a camera was in easy reach, and the ring was perfect. A silver band with a forest green emerald and two amethysts on either side. The story of our meeting had been told many a time by that night and she continuously thought it the height of hilarity that I could remember exactly what robes and hat she had worn. But to me, that memory had seared itself into my brain and I could never forget any detail about it.

Every moment of our far too short time together was there in the vivid color of potion stains on fingertips and softly simmering cauldrons. Of love grown in the whirling dancing art of potions made with joyful, happy hearts. Even later when the potion making was for those fighting against a rising tide of darkness, the connections between us, the love that moved us, grew.

I was crying when the timer went off, set for two minutes before the next ingredients should be added in one cauldron and the other needed off its heat. There was nothing for it really. One simply had to learn to move on. The life of a child hung in the balance and with him the lives of many others would follow.

The potions that I was brewing would help me regain my footing in the field, if I could work through my complicated emotions. After that I could start the potion that I needed for my plan to work. A will weakening potion was not exactly illegal, it was just heavily frowned upon. And technically it was illegal to use potions on muggles, but they would have to prove that you had used potions and that was not likely to happen. When I did finally find an appropriate solicitor the plan was to dose all of the Dursleys with the will weakening potion. I would then lead them through signing off on a special guardianship for the muggle world as well as the contract for Gringotts.

I worked on potions all night. Making and then remaking the same easy common level potions that I used to be able to do blindfolded. I cleaned everything up and put everything magical away in the closet. Finishing getting dressed, after completing my nightly routine, I found that I couldn’t sleep. It had been a long time since I had allowed myself to miss her. It was easier to be bitter and closed off than to feel the sharp sadness that would follow any sweet remembrance.

I crept to my closet and scanned the boxes towards the back. Had I hidden them further back on purpose? Or had I thought that I wouldn’t need anything from them and pushed them as far back as possible? Out of sight, out of mind.

It took two boxes of memories and a half an hour of sniffling cries before I found it. A dragon hide box the same color of her eyes with a latch the shape of a potion vial. I had it custom made by a friend just for her, something that was completely unique. Inside rested a ring of silver with an emerald stone, amethysts on either side. It had been given back to me with a bundle of other belongings that had been on her at St Mungo’s.

I slowly closed the boxes I had taken out from the far reaches of the darkest corner in the closet. I held my treasure close to my chest as I made my way upstairs to my bed. Lying in the dark all alone, I let myself miss her as I looked at this symbol of our never ending love. Tomorrow would be a new day. And I would go on with purpose and confidence. But for now, in the shadow of the night, I missed her.

Chapter 7: Obscured

Chapter Text

4 January 1985

It was slow going getting up the next morning. I felt as though I had cried long after I had fallen asleep. The deep ache that had weighed down on my chest the night before had settled in my bones. A depressing state of existence that simply wouldn’t do, I had so much going on. Too much that depended on me.

I went through my new morning routine as I tried to snap out of my fugue state. An enchanted brush worked on my hair as I used light weights to do small, repetitive exercises. The brush would help stop, and even to a certain extent fix, the damage that I had been doing to my hair. The exercises were to build up strength in my upper body before I began on anything else. The potions that I took before I came down to start breakfast were also helping with those things. The metabolic adjustment potion and muscle growth potions helped my body work at it’s maximum best to get me into shape like I wanted. The bone health and vitamin and mineral potions were far more advanced than muggle vitamins as they worked to encourage healing as well as supply the body with the missing materials to do even better. The hair health and skin vitality potions actually worked best together as they increased the amount and capabilities of the body’s keratin, collagen, proteins, and elasticity. They also work with the metabolic potion to increase blood flow to the skin and follicles.

These were by no means fast fixes, but they were fixes. It would take a year or two of taking the potions daily in conjunction with all the changes to my diet, my exercise, and my hygiene practices before I got to where I actually should be. Things like this would not work for everyone because not everyone actually had the deficiencies that I had. My body had legitimate issues that needed extra help getting through. If, say, a body builder that was at the top of their game and practically heaving with muscles tried this potion regiment, nothing would happen. They wouldn’t have anything that needed fixing. So often people are disappointed that something is supposed to make them better and they didn’t actually have that problem in the first place. I never really understood that mindset, but I had seen it in my younger future days.

After breakfast I was feeling much better and started working on my character for the day. I would need to go out as a batty old lady and then become a posh lady in search of a solicitor. I had one last interview and it was set for later this morning, but if it didn’t work out I had to go through my list all over again to try for another one.

It was a cold, nasty day out. Great fat drops of rain fell and created slush with what was left of our Christmas snow. In several layers of old lady clothes, a heavy coat, a head scarf and a rain bonnet, I trudged out to a spot for the Knight Bus with my shopping cart filled with my nice suit. The bus was full as ever for a day with awful weather. I had never questioned it before, but why did the bus have more occupants on foul weather days? Many people apparated if they didn’t take the bus, didn’t they? Or a floo perhaps? But here they were, the lot of them spread out in comfy chairs with the enchantments straining to keep them still. Danny had given me a drying off with a quick flick of his wand, but others hadn’t gotten such treatment and little droplets splattered themselves against the inside of the windows in a wet mosaic after having been flung from hair and shoes and tightly clutched umbrellas.

Arriving at the Leaky was a relief and I gladly made my way into the warm pub with a backwards wave to the boys on the Knight Bus. As I passed Tom at the bar I thought to look over and mention, “That bus is always full on nasty days like this Tom. I can’t understand it. Surely those people apparate?” I was shaking my head in irritation, but Tom was nodding.

“It’s the ground though, in’t? They may know where they’re goin’ but what if it’s a bit of mud in the rain?”

I took a thoughtful moment to ponder that and eventually nodded my agreement. “You must have it there. Have a good day,” I called as I breezed towards the back. He waved me on and out.

Once in Diagon proper I made my way to Carkitt Market and back out into the muggle world and the rain. I changed my outfit in a small pub after arranging for my cart to be stowed in the backroom by a barkeep I had made friends with for just such a thing. At ten on the dot my hired car pulled to the front of the pub and I was off to meet the next solicitor.

The waiting room was well appointed and I was offered tea on a nice, if not fine, china with a floral pattern. The office was just for two partners, both fairly young, but in addition to family matters they were known for being able to establish thoroughly documented timelines of misbehavior. It was that recommendation that had really drawn me to put them in my top three list. I wanted to make sure that there was as accurate a history as possible so that later on, when we could, the evidence could be presented. I also wanted to cover my own actions. I was directly disobeying Albus Dumbledore and I was certain that disobedience would have far reaching consequences.

“Miss Warren?” said a man in a well fitted suit as he came towards me with a professional smile. “Thank you for waiting. If you would like to follow me to my office we can discuss your needs with a little more comfort and privacy.”

He was in his mid to late thirties, had stylishly coiffed sandy hair, a square face, and a watch that probably cost more than most paid for their mortgage. It was quite a first impression. I was led into an office that was indeed larger than their waiting area with comfortable chairs fitted around a small table. It was obvious that he used this table to meet clients instead of sitting behind his desk and it made me like him more. Such a small thing to change the balance during a conversation by putting everyone on more of an equal standing. It was bright and intuitive.

I looked around the sparsely decorated office and saw a variety of awards, certificates, and diplomas. There were very few pictures and even fewer personal touches. It gave a more cold, professional feeling than the offices I had visited previously which were warm with personality. When we had both settled and a steaming cup was set before each of us he took out a pad and pen before asking, “Why don’t we get right to the heart of the matter, Miss Warren? What is it specifically that you want to accomplish?”

“There’s a young boy for whom I have taken on a grandmotherly role. He is an orphan and has legally been placed into the home of his maternal aunt. Unfortunately, the woman is incredibly abusive. I would like to find some way in which to remove him from her without having to force the issue at court.”

We went back and forth like that for an hour or so, carefully dancing around details I didn’t feel would be safe to give to a stranger. In the end he was intelligent and capable, and more than able to help me do what I wanted. He hadn’t tried to steer me towards the court as the other solicitors had done. Instead he spoke of using various types of contracts and custody agreements to arrange what would amount to special guardianship.

Hours later I sat as a batty old lady with fly away hair in a friendly pub and enjoyed a hearty lunch. I was going to have to make the decision to trust someone. Was that someone the solicitor I had met today? Or should I keep searching.

If only I could obliviate them. I could get the proper paperwork, have the Dursleys sign it, have it lodged with the local council, and then wipe it out of everyone's minds. But such magics were far outside my capabilities. I needed to find someone to trust or Harry was not going to make it out of his childhood intact. Not to mention the war that Albus would lose on purpose so that Harry would throw himself at a crazed monster.

It wasn't any good, I thought with a bit of disgust at myself. They had all been reasonable, but this last one was perfect. He had the right look, he did the right things, he said the right things, but still I hesitated. It wasn't about the solicitor then, I supposed. It was about trust. It was about power.

Revealing myself to anyone in any way required me to trust that person in a way that I simply couldn't anymore. Before, when I was just a cat lady, the only one I really trusted was Albus. I trusted him to be the right leader. A good leader, who did the right thing. With the knowledge I now had of how he was knowingly raising at least one child to die as a sacrifice I could no longer trust him about anything. With the exception of sticking his crooked beak into everyone's business and thinking he knew better about everything.

Having no actively available magic myself left me vulnerable. The acting, the character sheets, even the clothes I wore, disguised and protected me. Giving up any part of that would be making me more vulnerable. And poor Harry didn't have any disguises to hide behind. Just little tricks I could teach him to get around his relatives until I could save him. He was so smart and so fast.

Too smart and too fast, I recalled. I settled my bill and wandered towards the bookshops to find something on child development. After that I would go to the bookshops in the alleys to see about differences in muggle and magical children. During my walk, instead of focusing on the worry of getting proper legal assistance, I focused on what I could recall about Harry’s intelligence from my younger future days.

The Harry that I remembered best was from the tv series. They had done a great job fleshing out the characters from the books, both for the Harry Potter series and the Marauders series. The actors were great for everyone, though I remembered the one for Ron Weasley being a particular favorite. The actor anyway, even if the character was a second favorite next to Hermione Granger for me.

This wasn't to say that I couldn't remember the book version of Harry Potter. It was just much more difficult for me to remember what I had read in the canonical books versus the massive amount of fanfiction I had inhaled for most of my young life. I did recall, however, that the majority opinion was that serial Harry was very close to book Harry.

He was smart, but better at practical work. He was friendly, but not overly outgoing. He was brave, but only when it came to helping others. He was a sassy, sarcastic little sh*t sometimes.

What Harry wasn't, though, was smarter at age eleven than he appeared to be at under five. Even accounting for being told to pretend he didn't exist so much that he developed learning issues, most children would still grow at a steady rate. The more neglect the slower the rate, surely, but there should be some change in six years.

In the muggle world it seemed that there were really only two types of books one could find that dealt with children. The first was light in its prose and in its facts. A sort of, "everything is wonderful" type of approach that didn't actually give the reader any assistance when it came to rearing or understanding children. The other type was so clinical and dense that it seemed only someone writing a dissertation might look into those works. Neither being especially helpful I continued on in my procrastination by going through the books on the magical side of the divide. It was a kindness that the rain had stopped, but the alleys were spelled to mute nasty weather anyway. It would still snow and rain, but it would never be anything like the downpour of this morning.

In the bookshops of the alleys the books on young wixen were dotted with helpful hints on how to manage accidental magic without being discouraging, how to spell out spills, and how to tell if your child was old enough to use a toy broom. Books specifically for muggles about their muggle born children were interesting, but felt a bit racist in their "your children are better than you" rhetoric. Most of the literature seemed to tend towards that slimy feeling when trying to compare muggle and magical children.

To avoid it, I went searching in the areas of the shops that were devoted to raising magical mischief makers. It was odd when my brain finally clicked and realized that the magical world had a better understanding of child behavior and development, at least for magical children, than the muggle world right now. In the 1980s there were probably a lot of things going on in the field of psychology, but it wasn’t necessarily accessible to everyone. The magical world, on the other hand, had a hundred different titles that read more like the knowledge I was accustomed to in my younger future days.

I wondered about it for a moment before deciding to see if the thing that I believed to have set this off even existed. It was debated over the many decades of Potterlore as to whether or not it was canon. After asking a clerk for assistance, I did find several books on them in the history sections of the shops.

Though the clinical muggle books I had skimmed through hadn’t been as bad as "lobotomize the brains of children to make them behave," it did have a lot of "let's blame children for the responses they have to the awful things adults do to them" and was considerably less advanced than what I was seeing in the magic books. This might be because the muggles and muggleborns seemed to be blamed for a large amount of awful things instead of the pureblood children. In the same sort of way people used to rationalize it being a black child's fault for being shot in the back because they were wearing a hoodie and running away from scary men with guns. It was racism, plain and simple.

But the main reason that the magical world probably had a better handle on child and infant development was because obscurials were real. With such a dangerous sickness being real it is no wonder that even such a slow moving society would make moves to research, understand, and develop this field. Which all begged the question of whether Harry was turning into an obscurial and if that had something to do with his high level of development. I bought books on obscurials, histories, infants and children, health and growth, potions, and a few fictional books as well. I was hoping to cover up my reading habits a bit.

After that I decided to take care of another Harry related shopping necessity. I had been eyeing the shop for quite some time and was fairly certain that they would have exactly what I needed. I hadn’t wanted to go before with the Christmas rush however, and now I had something in mind for more than just myself.

The bright pinks and purples of the storefront were accented with glittery whirls of movement, it looked as though a sparks spell was being randomly cast about the window display. It certainly worked to draw attention. I allowed myself a brief moment to wonder if the Weasley twins would someday have their tophat wearing shop near here, or if they would never have it at all. I was going to change so much after all, who knew how that would effect them specifically.

A small tinkling chime sounded as I made my way through the door with the most confused and bewildered face I could manage. I nervously gripped my extendable bag tight and shuffled through the doorway, moving my head this way and that while flicking my eyes shrewdly over the few people scattered in the large shop. The shop was as pink and soft as a cloud of candy floss, large round tables displaying the shop’s wares were artfully arranged. The cathedral like ceiling had some kind of enchantment on it allowing it to look as though a pink and purple nebula was lazily drifting about the store, sharp pinpoints of sunken stars breaking through luminous haze. They were crystal hewn lamps shining through the misty magics.

A young woman of perhaps twenty with hair so vibrantly purple I had to make sure to stare, came up to me with a warm smile and extended hands, "Welcome to Fabulousa! Is this your first time shopping with us?"

The question was just to get a conversation started and the warm, calm tone of her voice had not an ounce of patronizing irritation. I knew that it would be easy to work with her on this project just from that. The way she looked also helped to reassure me and the character I was acting that she would know what I needed. I smiled at her as I fidgeted and looked around, still a little lost, before nodding nervously.

"I've a good bit of spending money from the holidays and I wanted to use it to buy the various children in my life fun little things. My little god niece would love to be able to change her hair like yours," I muttered shyly as I looked pointedly at the impressive stellar purple afro she was sporting, a silver star shooting past her ear as I spoke. "But her mother would want it to go back the way it was if it wasn't play time. My friend suggested this shop had charms that could do that."

“That’s wonderful. We can do that and more. My name is Amara Fabling, this is my store,” She held out her arms wide as though she could encompass the whole of the place. “My business partner is more of a numbers person, but I have quite the head for enchantments. Let me show you the charm that I have on right now, it’s a favorite of mine.”

We moved further into the store and off to the right of the door towards a wall of jewelry and trinkets. It sparkled and moved, the magic of them waiting in anticipation. Fabling threw her arms up at the wall as though worshiping the mass of sparkling gold and silver. “This is my favorite part of the whole store. I absolutely love making these. They change hair color for a wide variety of hair types, in solid or patterned colors. Or even like the one I’m wearing,” she pointed to her neck where a delicate gold necklace with a small aquamarine crystal lay in stark contrast to her rich dark skin. “With an animation in the color. The Shining Star animation is one of the most popular charms right now.”

“Oh, I think that she would like that. Does it just come in purple?”

“No! We have a variety of colors as well as one that swings between colors. We also have different animations for each of the four houses, an animated snitch that will zoom and hide, and even a quaffle that will race around their hair.”

“Well, I think she would like one in a very bright blue, if you have it. Now you must understand,” I quavered lowly, “I’m a squib and so are many of the children I know. And the children that will go to Hogwarts won’t be permitted to use magic while out of school. So I’m looking for things that they can all use.”

Fabling’s hazel eyes had gotten a bit wide, and she may have forgotten to breathe for a moment, while I explained this, but she nodded in understanding. “That’s nothing to worry about with almost all of our products.” She was nearly as quiet as I had been, but instead of a wavering whisper it was a soothing murmur. I nodded and that was that.

She took me through everything personally, even encouraging me to try on a few things myself. In the end I had made a new contact and had a veritable horde of products that I could use to help Harry. As I approached the counter to pay she looked a little worried at the mountain of treasures we had set aside. I could feel her mind analyzing my old, but good quality clothes and my worn shoes. Her wondering if I would be able to pay was written all over her face so, in a moment of pity for my new acquaintance, I began bringing the galleons out of my bag before she could think about taking a loss by giving me too much of a discount. The surprise at the gold was almost too funny not to laugh about, but she quickly went back to marking up the purchases.

“Don’t worry dear,” I huffed with a laugh. “I put my money where it’s best used.”

Fabling’s shoulders hunched up as she looked at the purchases with a great deal more concentration than was actually needed for the task. “Oh, it’s alright. You’re young yet. But you have such a lovely business. You and your partner must be doing very well, did you ever put more into the business and forgo a new pair of shoes? Or a nicer night out?” The shoulders started to fall and the young woman nodded, her vibrant galaxy of hair bouncing slightly in the motion.

All told it was quite a bit of money. There were always £5 to every galleon. Instead of being on the gold standard the worth of the galleon was tied to the worth of the pound and a single galleon would always equal a £5 note. It was perhaps not the wisest of money systems, but considering money only had meaning if society gave it meaning in the first place, the system in use didn’t really matter. Not to me anyway. The amount of the £5 was further broken down into sickles and knuts based on the galleon conversion. There were 17 sickles in a galleon and 29 knuts in a sickle. Then, of course, was my future knowledge of inflation multiplying that £5 by four. With both memories, however, I was able to easily work through all the conversions to make sure I stayed in my budget.

“That total comes to 843G 10s 6k,” she whistled appreciatively. “I think you just became my favorite customer and I know all the kids in your life are going to be very happy.”

As it turned out, I could probably have bought the fancy watch off that solicitor earlier and still have had room in my budget. That’s what happens when you start a successful business as a teenager and just never stop. There was a never ending supply of people who wanted feline familiars every year and I was the breeder everyone wanted to buy them from, even if they bought them from one of the stores I sold through. I had two or three litters going every month since I was around twenty, that was nearly twenty five years ago. I had lived on the family estate until I had gotten married and then was set up in the Order house in Little Whinging after. A little frugality and a lot of shrewd investments, both muggle and magical, allowed me a comfortable amount of gold. There was always the patents as well, but I didn’t touch those. No that gold belonged in the many pillared halls of stone and caverns old, it was not touched or thought on.

7 January 1985

It had been three days since I had met with the perfect solicitor and I still could not bring myself to trust him with Harry even if I was going to cloud everything over with a bit of magic and slight of hand. I had read all of the books that I had gotten from the alleys that day and made plenty of notes on useful or worrisome things. I had hoped that by now I would have things going at the Dursleys so that Harry would not have to live in a constant state of terror and starvation. I had made progress in several areas, just not the ones where I wanted to see immediate action.

The extended purse I had gotten for him was the size of a small change pouch and had preservation charms. It could hold additional food, potion ingredients, or potions without it spoiling as well as any other item up to a truly absurd weight. Extension charms were a tricky bit of magic, especially if you wanted anything like food to go into it. That’s why, legally speaking, there were restrictions on who was permitted to do such things. Most people bought their bags, trunks, and tents with those and other charms on them from specialty shops so it didn’t matter much. All of those shops had people with proper permits. Doing such a thing to your own bag or trunk, as long as no food or people were to go in them, would only get you a warning if the Ministry felt so inclined to even take notice. Anything that involved people going into it was more serious as when extension charms collapse the person was very likely to die.

I had already carefully packed the extended purse for Harry, but was stymied by the fact that we should have no reason to interact. Even worse, a drop off was impossible due to his relations wanting to constantly lock him in a cupboard if he wasn’t working on “chores” for them. I couldn’t be seen giving it to him and I couldn’t set up a drop point with him if he was never alone. I was working on it, but again it was taking time. I felt like everything was taking too much time.

In reading through the books I became more knowledgeable about obscurials and magical children. Magical children did have a tendency to outpace muggle children as far as information absorption went, but unfortunately I did not believe it to be the cause here. Thankfully, however, Harry was not an obscurial. The magic he used was not angry or turned in on himself in a rage. Harry knew he was not as normal as the Dursleys, as if the Dursleys were what would pass for normal, but he didn’t try and force his magic inward. If I had to guess, it was probably because Harry was blamed for everything. He was hurt and punished for everything that the Dursleys didn’t like, even if he knew it wasn’t his fault. This might have been what saved him from becoming an obscurial. He didn’t once believe he was being punished for being magical, just for being Harry.

The way that Harry behaved was still an issue though, as it was not in line with what a muggle or a magical child should be at his age. Even gifted children would not act like this at his age. For all of her academic intelligence and acting like an adult, Hermione Granger was still a child and acted like a child. It was the same for many gifted children. Their intelligence might earn them praise and they would then take on more adult aspects, but still emotionally be children with some odd adult characteristics. Harry behaved neither as a four year old should, nor as an adult, and not even some odd mix inbetween. Instead he was simply aged up by five or so years in intelligence and emotional maturity. While perhaps with a loving and attentive family he might be a little advanced, five years was far too much. With the family he had to safekeep himself from, however, he would be lucky to know his own name. And yet, here was Harry a four year old acting as though he had the emotional and intellectual experiences of an eight year old.

Oh, sh*t

What if Harry did have the experiences of an eight year old? An eight year old orphan living in a London that was hobbling its way through the Great Depression.

But, no, that couldn’t be right… could it? If he was at the level of about eight now, then why wouldn’t that increase by the time he went to school? Did he have actual memories? Did he have access to a greater amount of power? Did he remember more than just Wool’s Orphanage if he remembered anything at all? Why hadn’t he said anything? Did he just think it was normal like fictional Harry thought loads of people talked to snakes? Did he worry that he was crazy? Did he just not trust adults? Maybe it wasn’t actually happening at all.

Oh.

Harry can talk to snakes. I don’t think that I ever picked up on that in the whole of my other life. At the end of the first series, Harry isn’t supposed to be able to talk to snakes anymore.

I even remember Dumbledore theorizing that Voldemort’s magic is what gave Harry the power to speak to snakes. But in that past future life I had never made the connection that if Voldemort’s magic was effecting Harry so much that it gave him additional magical abilities it might be doing other things to him as well. How much of an effect might that have on his cognitive abilities?

That horrible thing needed to be out of his head now. I simply didn’t have the power or the contacts to do it, especially without Albus catching on to what was happening. I still couldn’t bring myself to trust the solicitor so completely, but perhaps it wasn’t strictly necessary. Perhaps there was another way around things. After all, I was not really interested in the local council knowing that Harry had different guardianship. I just wanted the Dursleys to leave him alone. Or, perhaps more importantly, to leave him to me. All without the protections breaking or Albus’ other spies knowing anything about it.

Author's Note
The next couple of chapters will jump around in time.

Chapter 8: More

Chapter Text

12 January 1985

It was a grey Saturday morning when Little Whinging was surprised by a parade of sleek silver Vauxhalls gliding through and catching the attention of more and more residents before slowing to a stop in front of number 4 Privet Drive. From a half dozen vehicles came a black suited swarm carrying with them tools, lighting equipment, and large professional looking cameras. Out of the single black car emerged a striking woman in pink, her blonde hair piled in a neat chignon, waving her hand with a high gloss manicure at the black swarm as she called for her bag.

By this time the Dursleys, who had taken to relaxing in front of the television after a filling breakfast, had noticed all of the commotion outside of their home. Vernon Dursley, a furrow making deep gouges across his forehead, roughly shoved a boy underneath the stairs with several firm threats about what would happen to him if he should even think of existing let alone what would happen if he made any noise. Petunia quickly went into the kitchen to put the last of the dishes in the drying rack that the boy had been working on. Their son had started peaking his head under the curtains to see what all the fuss was about. His father pulled him back gently and motioned him over to the door, opening it with a jovial smile and a twitch of his walrus like mustache before the knock even came.

They were greeted by the bright lights of cameras flashing and celebratory crackers going off around a young woman with a radiant smile. He cautiously returned the smile with his wife over his shoulder and his son trying to peak out the door.

“Congratulations!” The crowd joyously shouted at the bewildered Dursley family, more flashes as cameras went off while they tried to steady themselves and failed. “I’m Sandra Moore of the Intrepid Travel Agency and you have won the GRAND PRIZE!”

If any of the inhabitants of Little Whinging were not aware of the commotion going on at number 4 before, they certainly were now. Between the many photos being taken, the pops of crackers, and the congratulations on the grand prize win, there hadn’t been so much noise since Mr. Number 9 had gotten a cherry red Porsche after his wife left him for a Spanish businessman.

Ever the friendly sort, the Dursleys invited the woman inside while waving to the curious onlookers that had gathered around their home to see what the commotion was all about. As they entered the home, the pink queen bee settled into a seat of the salmon colored living room while her little swarm went about their work elsewhere. A man, roughly the same age as the Dursley couple, stood off to the side quietly letting the woman work.

“By winning the grand prize you qualify for our all expenses paid month long holiday. In accordance with the rules that you agreed to upon entering you will have your photos published in our newsletters and brochures as well as be sent off to the local news in celebration!” the words flowed out of Moore like a tidal wave in the most Right Proper to have ever graced the Dursley household. Her exuberance and joyful demeanor was contagious and soon Petunia was smiling while Vernon rubbed his hands together over this lucky win.

“We are required to get your permission on a number of things though and that requires John here,” she gestured to the middle aged man with dark brown hair that had drifted towards the sitting room. “John is here to notarise these documents for us to allow everything that you are agreeing to for your holiday. Do you both have passports and driving licenses?”

“Yes, I think I have them upstairs,” Petunia said in a soft confused voice. “Shall I go get them now?”

“I have my driving license just here. Pet, why don’t you go and get those and I’ll handle this?” recommended Vernon amiably as he pulled out his wallet to produce the photocard. His wife slowly made her way up the stairs towards their bedroom, passing by more of the workers as they crowded the halls and staircase. They seemed to be measuring things as they took pictures and Petunia didn’t want to get in their way. “Good then, Dudley, go and get your mother’s purse from the other room. There’s a good lad.”

“Is, um, Dud? Dudley?” asked Moore with a faint moue pursing her lips, even as Vernon nodded confirmation that he had indeed named his son Dudley. “Is Dudley the only minor in your family? On the entry your wife put two adults and one child for the holiday.”

“Apple of my eye, my boy Dudley,” replied Vernon as he nodded, his voice thick with emotion. He ruffled his son’s blond hair and looked back up at her. “Growing up too fast, he’ll be five soon. Ahh,” he said as he pulled his prize from the handbag. “Here is mine and my wife’s.”

The notary took the photocards as he finally sat down with the others. While he was looking them over Petunia rejoined them and handed over their passports for him to examine. He didn’t speak a word the entire time and seemed to be rather uncomfortable in the Dursley's home.

“Now,” said Sandra Moore with a smile. “We need to go over what we will be signing, though, of course, you should read it as well. These first documents are for us to legally use pictures of you. I need both of your signatures here,” she slid over two sheets of official looking papers with a mark at each place they should sign. Then she pulled pens for each of them out of her bag, they were large marbled fountain pens laying in a velvet lined box and it added an air of seriousness.

“Please make sure to carefully read everything in the documents.” She said while taking out yet more papers from the bag. The Dursleys signed the papers happily at each marked spot as they smugly envisioned a luxury holiday and how all their neighbors were going to be so jealous.

“These are for taking pictures of the house,” she waved her hand out towards her little busy bees with a rueful smile and a raising of a single delicate brow. “Obviously they have already started. They are taking some pictures, but mostly it’s measurements and lighting requirements and whatever else they will need in order to do the best job possible.” She shook her head a bit and sighed, “It’s not really my area of expertise, I’ll leave it to them to figure out all the best ways and places to set this up. But these papers,” she said with a gesture to the new documents, “are rather particular, which of you is on the deed to the house? It seems to make some difference legally speaking.”

“I am,” Petunia said hesitantly. “We used my inheritance to buy it outright.” Vernon nodded his confirmation and so the paperwork that dealt with the house was moved over to Petunia. She signed it happily dreaming on how her home would be in travel brochures and adverts. Her home, and her family, known far and wide because she had put them into a drawing. Though she didn’t rightly remember what drawing it was, she must have done it and not thought of it again. How lucky was she?

While the couple were signing away at papers that Sandra Moore kept putting in front of them, laughing a little between the three of them at how much was demanded of them to meet all the requirements of the law, she had been deftly setting out glossy booklets with breathtaking photos for the Dursleys to peruse. But it was Dudley who picked them up first as the adults had been preoccupied, they noticed when he started squealing and jumping up and down though.

“Dudders, really,” Petunia said as she tried to calm her child she pried the pamphlet from his tiny hands.

Sandra Moore just smiled at them though, her plum colored lips showing them how much she was enjoying this moment. “Oh, dear! Did you not tell the little one where your trip would be Mrs Dursley?”

Petunia and Vernon looked confusedly at each other before glancing down at the glossy pictures themselves. The Grand Floridian, it said in bold curling letters above an image of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. “Disney World,” the Dursleys exclaimed simultaneously before starting to laugh at themselves.

“Oh yes, it is a wonderful package. That’s why we at the Intrepid Travel Agency ran the promotion to begin with, we wanted to make sure that people were aware that the package could be done easily and more affordably than most parents believe. Now if you would like, and we would certainly love it if you did, we could use some of the photos and family snapshots that you take while you are away. People love seeing real families going to the places that we advertise instead of just the marketed images.” Mr and Mrs Dursley gave each other smug smiles and each signed more papers Sandra had pushed towards them as she spoke, though by this time their hands were starting to hurt. “Wonderful. We can get those negatives from you when we come to do the after photos and get your reviews. Make sure you are writing down little things that you liked about your trip during your stay, trust me it makes the review process so much easier.

“That’s about it, I think. Oh, but you have a minor as well so we will need you to sign these papers if you would like him to be in any of the pictures and these for travel and so forth.” She passed one set of papers to Vernon and another to Petunia. “As you can see we have simply put in ‘Minor(s)’ for his name since you didn’t identify him in your entry. You said he was how old? Five, did you say?”

“No, no he’ll be five this year,” came Vernon’s merry reply as he patted his son’s head again.

“Lovely I’ll just fill in the age as four, born 1980 on the paperwork here,” Moore said as she pulled it back to her, Petunia went to offer her the fancy fountain pen she had used when signing the paperwork, but Moore just smiled and showed off the pen she had ready to make the changes. “Right then, after you sign this I think that’s the last of the paperwork. You did read all of the paperwork, right?” she said in a concerned voice. But the Dursleys just nodded and said that of course they had. “Wonderful, then John here will notarise everything and we will let him do his job while the photographers do some ‘surprised before the trip’ type pictures with the whole family. Don’t worry we have a makeup artist set up and ready to make you look a little less surprised.”

It was almost going on five hours by the time the cars had packed away the thrumming swarm of workers and were on their way. The parade of sleek vehicles out of Little Whinging caused a secondary stir amongst the residents. The family at number 4 would keep them waiting, however, as they had gone back inside to sort themselves. The three Dursleys were feeling rather tired after the whole affair and were only too happy to tuck themselves into bed for a nap with little fuss. They would get up in time for dinner, probably.

In a cupboard under the stairs, lay a boy who was much too small on top of a mat that was worn thin. In the dark all by himself he finally breathed a relieved sigh, though it sounded more like a sob. With the others most assuredly asleep the little boy opened the magic purse and pulled out a small orb. The ball lit as soon as he touched it and his face relaxed in its gentle light. Setting down the glowing orb, the child pulled out food and began to nibble on it. When he had eaten as much as his small, mistreated stomach could he put the orb near his head and the purse in a good hiding spot. With a sigh, the battered and starved child hoped that everything had worked out.

8 January 1985

The night had been filled with monsters. I did not have nightmares because one must sleep for dreams to become terror. Instead I was haunted by my own imagination, whatever it could dream up on the subject of Tommy Riddle playing around in little Harry’s head. As soon as I was ready for the day, I contacted the last solicitor. I did not want him to properly lodge or file the agreements. I told him it would only be necessary if there was a fight. Instead I simply needed them to sign what amounted to a contract. In the end this was the biggest hitch, as I still needed someone with the authority to make those contracts legitimate on the muggle side of things. If not a solicitor and the courts then a notary would be needed. Notaries were something I could handle however, it would just take a little convincing.

Which was why I was currently whizzing along the streets of England in a violently purple triple decker bus. A fellow squib who had been helpful in many ways before, happened to be a notary. I hadn’t thought of using a contract only method on the Dursleys before or I might have asked him to help. As it was, I wasn’t sure that he would help. It’s difficult for anyone on this side of the darkness to go against Albus, even those of us that live on the outskirts of society. I was certain that I could ask him without Albus ever finding out about the conversation though, and that was why I was willing to drudge out to Bristol to see him.

There’s nothing wrong with Bristol, per se, but it seemed like the number of overly exuberant men who shouted at each other increased rapidly as you approached the inner core of Bristol. That place where only true “Brizzle born an’ proud” seem to spill out on to the streets. Right now, smack in the middle of the 1980s, Bristol was a music and club underground hot spot that drew in the more rowdy segments of the population since they couldn’t get their fix from mainstream venues. Sometimes people rioted in the streets, but that was less Bristol pride and more “police are abusing their power and I’m angry” recently.

It was funny, now that I thought on it. Every generation seems to fight with the police and think that they are the only ones to have ever done so in all of history. I was always of the opinion, in both of my lives and this one, that positions of power attracted those who liked to abuse power. Injustices done by police or the legal system were done by those who could not be impartial and were often enjoying their positions of power over others.

My friend, however, was a well spoken man just over fifty who was capable of enunciation and had a calm demeanor. He was the type of person that truly did judge by actions rather than by name or heritage. He has been a notary for decades now and does tend towards the muggle side of things rather than the magical.

An odd thing seemed to often happen to those within the magical society, one that I had never been able to understand, where it was believed that the majority of those born without magic were killed by their magic wielding family. It was not true, not now and not even historically, and I should know given that most of my web was made up of just such people. There were some families that supposedly killed off their kin, “pruning the family tree” or some such euphemism. But even then that was maybe two or three families in all of Magical Britain. The Figg family was an old family even if it wasn’t as old or as noble as the Blacks, there were plenty of families who instead did what they thought was best for their kin. Not every family is so extreme.

It isn’t easy to reach across that divide though, for parents to watch their children never experience the wonders of magic like they did or for the children who often never feel like they completely belong to either world. For myself, I found a passion that I could pursue as a career in the magical world from a young age. For John? His family helped him get the best muggle education they could find.

John had gone on from that wonderful gift to earn a scholarship to university. He ultimately became a notary public. Which is a solicitor, but not the kind I initially was looking for when trying to help Harry. John deals with businesses, contracts, any time someone needs documents certified for international authentication. He doesn’t deal with family law. But since I am now putting together what amounts to a contract and I need the documents to be witnessed and certified, he’s perfect. That is, if I can convince him to help.

I got off the Knight Bus a few blocks away from where we would be meeting. He knew that I wanted to talk about something that couldn’t be overheard so any of his usual places in the area were out. We needed a place that wouldn’t seem to be unusual for us to go to, but that we had never been to before.

Out on the wharf there was Brunel’s SS Great Britain, a ship that had been hauled out of the waters and restored simply to be a tourist attraction. It wasn’t much just yet, but by the time of my younger self’s future it was a staple of the area. Around it had cropped up little eateries and shops. This is where I would be promenading with John. We would start at Brunel’s Buttery and then walk along with our butties. It would look like a casual get together between old friends, no one would have any warning about where we were going as we had set up the meeting point in codes used during the height of the war, and with the number of people bustling around us it would be difficult to eavesdrop. Not to mention that most magical people would certainly stick out in the crowd.

He was already there, casually scanning the crowd, looking as tall and handsome as he always had. There were a few groups of walkers doing their daily go round who gave him assessing looks. He pretended not to notice it, which made me smirk. Tall, fit, and with his warm eyes, easy smile, and chiseled jaw, everyone always noticed him. Even now that his hair had turned to silver.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked as I made my way over to him still in my cat lady persona. I couldn’t drop it now, even though John was aware that it wasn’t really who I was, there were too many people. If it did get back to anyone that he and I had met up for a friendly afternoon, then they should report seeing the old cat lady and the handsome notary. John’s pocket square, however, was positioned just so to tell me that he did not believe he had been followed and he did not see anyone suspicious in the crowd. As I moved towards him I acknowledged this with a touch to my brooch. No one had followed me, I agree that this area appears clear, was all said in that small gesture.

“Not long, dear,” he said as he took my arm. “You look lovely as always. I am happy that we could finally find time for each other. Thank you for the Christmas gift.”

“You haven’t changed a bit. I’m glad that you liked it, but I am sorry for not being a better friend, I’ve been dealing with some things.” He gave me an unimpressed look and a raised brow. “After her death and the war and everything…”

I was surprised that I was struggling so much. It was true that we hadn’t kept up contact as much as we should have after the war. When my wife had died I did little else but my work as a spy for the Order. I had neglected my friends unless they were useful for the cause. A single minded focus that had left me with an even deeper depression to deal with once the Potters had died. Depression isn’t the best motivator for reaching out to neglected friends and so my friendships had languished even more. It wasn’t until this conversation that I realized how much my friendships had been affected by my emotional state.

While I was struggling with the idea that I had dozens of friendships in disrepair with a desperate need to fix them, John had walked us over to the Buttery and given an order. When he gave my hand a little pat, I looked back up to him with a small sad smile.

“No worries, Bella.” His voice was soft and smooth with just a little melancholy hidden within the understanding. “I know how hard you took her death. You didn’t even have any time to truly grieve her while you were fighting. I don’t presume to know how you felt, I have never experienced the depth of love the two of you had for each other. But I am glad that you are feeling well enough now for a walk with me.”

We both shared a glance and a smirk as we began walking along, slowly eating our fare. Nothing was said for a bit of any true importance as we needed to make sure it was believable that we had simply met up and had a walk about. Eventually, it was time to get down to the heart of the matter and I was more than a little nervous about what my friend might say and what I might need to tell him. We couldn’t speak in a traditional code that we might have used to move information during the war, it would sound too strange and it had been some time since either of us had to use that type of recall on the fly. Instead I settled on the kind of communication that comes from being friends for so long.

“I was wondering if you had gone to a Founder’s Day Party this past year,” I began slowly. “Did you know much about the parties held in the Square?”

I watched his steely eyes as they moved back and forth, his smile showing he had missed this bit of our neglected friendship. He would understand that the Founder in the Square was Godric, the place where the statue of Godric Gryffindor had once stood was Godric’s Hollow. The party that is most often associated with Godric’s Hollow was that of 31 October 1981 when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated by Harry Potter.

“No my dear, I haven’t been to a Founder’s Day Party in many a year. Not much for me there, is there? Last one I went to had a few too many friends missing,” he laughed. “Did I miss out on some juicy gossip?”

The translation of that boiled to “I understand what you are saying, but I don’t know what the hell you are on about.”

“Yes, quite the gossip. Turns out we had it all wrong about little Arthur Prince’s situation. His uncle Agravaine was wrongly turned out of the house with all the locking changed. And with his mother and father, bless them, gone the young Prince has gone to live with people outside of the sphere of the Golden City. All of it done on the words of a beekeeper.”

They had always had a fondness for word games based on the stories of Camelot, though this was a bit twisted to make sense to few but them. Harry Potter had already been pushed forward as the next leader of the light, destined for greatness, much like had happened to Arthur. The use of Agravaine to describe Sirius Black was very purposeful as well. Agravaine had started out in the tales of Camelot as a well loved and respected knight before becoming one that often had negatives attached to him for no apparent reason. John would understand that the sphere of the Golden City meant the magical world and that Dumbledore was the beekeeper, based on our previous conversations.

The slight halt in his walk as we continued along our promenade was the only sign that he had figured out what this had all meant. I gave him a few beats to come to terms with it before delving further into the issue. “It seems the beekeeper is not as concerned with the hive as we had previously believed. I will not tell you more if you do not wish to know, such juicy gossip is difficult to know and not act on. And who knows what the reaction will be by those we are gossiping about?”

This gave John a way out, if he didn’t want to become involved he would simply change the conversation back to the lighter topic of earlier. If he did want to continue he would ask for more gossip. I wouldn’t force him to help, but it would be better if I had someone else in the know while I worked on things.

As John took a moment to think on it we turned at the end of the main path to go back again the other way. I was very firm about not forcing his involvement. The muggle solicitors would not be in as much danger as he would. They might be obliviated, but his whole world could come crashing down around him with the wrong words to the right people.

“Hells Bells, you do know how to make things difficult don’t you?” he huffed out a laugh while shaking his head.

“It’s been a while since anyone has called me that, Johnny boy,” I rejoined with a smile.

“Are you saying the beekeeper was aware that Agravaine was not responsible? And by not responsible you mean… all of it?”

“It’s more than that, are you sure you want to know?” He threw his head back as though he was impeaching the sky for patience before nodding. “He had plans to obscure Arthur and Agravaine would have gotten in the way.”

With a bit of mild muttering, that sounded suspiciously like swearing, John redirected us to the edge of the walkway. We leaned over and watched the murky waters as other walkers passed behind us. He had never been as good at keeping his expression in character and was struggling to keep something mildly neutral.

I may have been able to confirm that Harry did not have any of the most well known characteristics of an obscurial, yet, but that did not mean Dumbledore’s plan wasn’t to make Harry an obscurial. A better weapon that only Albus would be capable of controlling.

“That’s a pretty serious bit of gossip. Do you have any proof or is it just something you heard through the grapevine?”

“Of course I have proof. You know it hasn’t just been dark times that kept me away from the Golden City. I have a little house out there now. Nice neighborhood. Nice families.”

It really took him longer than it should have to realize I was telling him I lived near Harry Potter and was keeping an eye on him. He was so troubled by the idea that the so called Leader of the Light would try to purposely create an obscurial out of The Boy Who Lived that he wasn’t catching on as quickly.

“It’s a place of pretty flowers,” I said after giving him a few moments more to collect himself. Judging by how fast his salt and pepper eyebrows shot to his hairline before he gathered his composure, he understood that I mean Lily Potter née Evans family was charged with the raising of Harry. He would remember that Lily and Petunia had a huge falling out and that Petunia was a muggle who hated magic.

He pulled on my hand and we began walking again, though we didn’t say anything for a long time. It had been centuries since there had been a confirmed obscurial in Britain, but there were rumors of them happening in other countries infrequently. Human memories are such short and strange things. When enough time passes some things seem more like a legend or tall tale than reality. Sometimes it is dismissed as something our ancestors or the old society didn’t fully understand, but has a perfectly reasonable explanation now. The effect of the witch hunts on our society was immense and deep, it changed the way we treated our children because the number of obscurials escalated the more we tried to hide and save them from the violence and the fires.

Between the memories of rumor and the upbringing that my older self had in the magical world and the constant confusion on the subject in my younger future days, I still wasn’t sure if there really were obscurials or if everyone simply believed that they would happen. But if it was true, and by now I had read a rather large amount on this, it was a horrible thing to happen for all involved.

And here I had presented John with the understanding that Albus wanted to purposefully create a powerful living weapon by making a child an obscurial. Anyone who had grown up on the magical side of the divide believed that they knew what was required to create an obscurial. Repeated abuses and caretakers who hated magic or in some way tried to force the child not to be magical when they were magical. John knew that Petunia was just the right type of horrible to accomplish Dumbledore’s plan. Whether John believed it was his plan or not, was still not decided yet.

“Perhaps the beekeeper is not aware of the issue with the flowers?” He sounded like he was desperate to believe it and I didn’t begrudge him that as I was aware most would want to believe the best of Albus Dumbledore. He had wormed his way into every corner of our society promising to be a hero. He guided the community, the education, the laws, our connections to other magical countries. How could he be a monster?

I gave him a gentle pat and leaned into him a bit for comfort as we continued our walk. “No, I made sure to repeatedly inform the keeper that there was an issue with the flowers.” I looked up at him and waited until he looked me in the eyes. “I sent him photos of the black and purple spots.”

It was such a sad thing to watch as such a stately man had his heart collapse in on itself. I moved us over to a bench so that it would just look that his erratic breathing was because we were a bit overtaxed from our walk. He wrapped an arm around me and we sat in the stillness of our own making, the world blurring past us.

“What do we do now, Bella?” he whispered roughly, his eyes suspiciously wet.

“We take it back,” I said to him firmly. “We take it all back. How much has been stolen by him? We are going to take it all back.”

He sat a bit straighter at that, his resolve set. An incredulous smile ghosting across his lips, “And how do you think we can manage to do that?”

I leaned into him further with a slightly cruel smirk I whispered, “I have a plan.”

The sharp sound of laughter rent through the air, “Of course you do. Can I safely assume that plan includes me in some capacity?”

“I need a few people to sign a contract. I’m going to make sure that the beekeeper and any of his charming help believe that everything is going according to his plan. I can do that while keeping our little prince safe, so long as I have access to the things left to him.”

Smiling dazedly and shaking his head, he laughed and pulled me up to walk along the edge of the wharf. We looked off into the waters for a bit, watching it ebb and flow. “Never small steps for you is it Bells?”

“Not usually, no.” I gave him a wiry smile, "I have the contracts from both sides. They look like perfectly normal legal documents. I just need someone I can trust to make it all official without making it too official.”

“It’s just a contract?”

“It’s multiple contracts, but just one that really needs your stamp. Can’t have anything going to court. It will just be a nice little contract between a few people.”

“They have to read the contract though, Arabella. I can’t just stamp it if they haven’t read the real contract.”

“It will absolutely be the real contract. They will have plenty of time to read it. And, if it makes you feel better, I will even encourage them to read it.”

“It would make me feel better, actually, thank you. But surely they won’t want to sign it?”

“The problem isn’t getting them to sign it really, the problem is that the beekeeper can’t know. Which means that they need to sign it without…” I trailed off. John was a good notary and wouldn’t want to get involved in anything that might be just this side of legal. I didn’t want to even imply that they had to sign it while thinking they were signing something else. Hopefully, telling them to read it will allow him some peace of mind.

“Don’t tell me. I will take the situation for what it is when I get there. If the beekeeper finds out I have been there-”

“Not to worry,” I cut in before the concern could bubble up. “I already have something for both of us to wear. All you have to do is concentrate on not having your emotions play across your face.” A small huff of annoyance was all I got in reply. “They will not see who you are physically. And it would be difficult for anyone to prove that you were there unless I show off the papers. No one who I show the papers to will be the least bit interested or concerned. They certainly won’t be overly fond of the beekeeper either. He will not know through me.”

“And just how do you plan to keep the charming tracking going if you are taking things away with this contract.”

“I can’t really elaborate John, just know that it’s more like I’m adding myself than taking away. At this point at least.”

“You really are just as exasperating as I remember,” the humor in his eyes belying the annoyance in his tone. “We should get together more often without the need for fixing catastrophes.”

“That would be wonderful,” I smiled as we began our walk again. “Let me tell you what I had in mind for your part of things. I don’t want you to be too surprised, but there’s only so much we can discuss here.”

Author’s note

I have tweaked when the Grand Floridian would have opened by a few years, I figure not everything can be the exact same in a world where magic exists. I actually did stay in the Grand Floridian in the late 80s, even took out some old photos thinking of what the Dursleys might do on this fun vacation. We didn’t stay for a full month though, because that’s ridiculous - but that’s rather the point for the Dursleys, a month in the most magical place on earth is ridiculous.

Chapter 9: The Goblin Nation

Chapter Text

8 January 1985

Once back home from my meeting with John, I put away the copies of the contract the solicitor had gotten to me so quickly and took out the copy of Gringotts Offered Services and my notes. I had been thoroughly and diligently taking note of any service that I thought would be useful and now would put some of them to work in my plans. The magical people who worked for the Nation were all under various, but extreme, contracts in regards to their work. Most couldn’t say anything other than that they worked for Gringotts, some couldn’t even say that much. The magics of the contracts kept them silent on anything sensitive and the fear of what the goblins would do if they broke their trust kept them quiet on anything else. Such a thing would be extremely useful to us now.

I had set up a meeting for this evening with Clinkscale at the bank and wanted to be prepared. There were several items that I wanted and quite a lot that needed doing. I wanted to go over every note that I had taken, not just on what my older self had observed but also what my younger future self had remembered from the works of fiction that laid out the lives of the people I now know to be real.

As I sifted through the mountains of timelines and fact sheets I thought about the characters I had grown up with and what made them real in my other life. There weren't many lines that I could directly quote from the original stories…

What few I could were fan favorites, each significant to the character and the story. There was one exception though, a quote that I didn’t really pick up on during early reads of the books or even while watching the movies at a young age. It happened because of one of those anti-bullying days at school.

I was going to turn thirteen that school year and, looking back on it, that’s probably why they had yet another person talking to us about how to handle bullying. Most of us were slinging messages back and forth, not really paying any attention unless called on for some demonstration. But this one speaker had decided he could connect to us by bringing up something pop culture relevant.

The newest thing that everyone was binge watching was The Marauders, it covered the years just before the adults from the Harry Potter series started at Hogwarts and then a few years after their graduation going on into the war. This speaker used the show as a way to highlight abuse and bullying that the characters either experienced or perpetrated. He even brought up the books, the original Harry Potter books, and started discussing the abuse and bullying in that as well. It was enlightening for me to see my favorites like that, but then he went a step further.

He talked about how much the people in the many stories all failed to stop abuse. That they knew about how Harry Potter and Severus Snape and Sirius Black were being abused at home. That they were denied food, physically hurt, had horrible things yelled at them, and more and that people knew it but did nothing to stop it. He admitted that it would have been harder back then as the protection laws have become better and better, but no one seems to have done anything at all.

In fact the most powerful character in the whole magical universe purposely ensured that great suffering would happen to Harry Potter. He brought out a quote that I will never forget, not because it was emotionally moving or because it was just one of those social things that everyone knew, but because I had never understood so clearly that adults could be so wrong before that moment. Even the adults in the storybooks that I had loved. It was late in the Order of the Phoenix that Dumbledore confessed to Harry, “You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.”

The speaker had gone on about how sometimes grownups are not as kind or as helpful as they pretend to be. He continued with how sometimes the people that were most vulnerable around were the people who could or would hurt us the most. It was an incredibly depressing if poignant moment in my life. I had understood later what he had meant. That a teacher, a coach, a priest, even parents, might take advantage of someone who felt vulnerable and that there were all these options and ways out that he had shown us. But for a long time all that resonated with me was that the greatest good guy in the whole Harry Potter universe was actually the bad guy. That he would condemn an infant.

My mother told me that the Harry Potter series is one of those series that changes as you age. Much like the stories of Narnia, you find a new meaning when you read it at different points of your life. As a child you think Dumbledore is the greatest wizard ever and he is pure light and goodness. At that age Severus Snape is the absolute enemy, evil incarnate. But as you get older, you realize that all of the adults in the stories are inherently flawed. The older you get, the more you wonder what you would have done.

I never really forgave Dumbledore. The other main characters, though, I have gone back and forth on them for most of my life. If Sirius Black was Harry Potter’s Godfather he should never have handed him over to Hagrid, to Dumbledore really, he should have run off and found a safe place for them.

Except… Sirius thought Dumbledore was the safest place for Harry what with a traitor on the loose. Don’t parents have to trust that the sitters for their children will take care of them? If Sirius was having the most magically and politically powerful wizard babysit his newly orphaned godson in a fortress like Hogwarts, can he really be faulted for going after Pettigrew? On and on with the back and forth for Sirius Black.

And don’t get me started on Severus Snape. Who could maintain a cover for a decade and stay sane? Especially if they were under constant scrutiny from tattling students who would talk about him to their Death Eater parents and a Headmaster that probably talked up how like his worst bully Harry was. If Albus Dumbledore can plan the death of a child, I’m going to accept that he would emotionally abuse his players as a manipulation tactic to get them to do what he wants.

As I closed up my notes to get ready for the meeting I couldn’t help but think one sad and serious thought.

The world has never been black and white, not even in fiction.

8 January 1985

A long, gnarled finger made its way slowly down the parchment, stopping long enough for a sharp claw-like fingernail to trace over blood. Though it had been nerve wracking to walk into Gringotts for this meeting tonight, I was actually becoming calmer with every moment that passed in Clinkscale’s cavernous office. The Potters had used the same clan as their managers for hundreds of years and it was fairly common knowledge that Master Clinkscale was the current Manager of Estates when James and Lily Potter had died. I knew that I would absolutely face scrutiny for having brought the contract that little Harry had signed. The only way that this could go badly, however, was if the account managers were under Albus Dumbledore’s thumb. All in all, a relatively low risk.

“You are not the first to think they can access the estates of the Potters,” came a gravely voice.

I looked up from my contemplation of gnarled fingers to see dark eyes piercing mine. “I understand your reluctance to trust. I am sure that it has protected the Potters in the past and will continue to do so. As I said, I represent young Harry Potter’s interests and per the laws of the Goblin Nation Mister Potter has signed the necessary documents to carry out that purpose.” There was no quaver or whisper in my voice here as a goblin would find it rather insulting to do something with the intent of hiding or deceiving with no other humans around. Deceiving other humans was acceptable for me to do, but not alone in his office with just him present. Instead I was clear and firm, this conversation would be the building block of future interactions and I wanted to start it out properly.

“The wizards appointed a wizard to take care of Mister Potter.”

“Oh? And I’m sure he was so happy to be allowed access to all of the Potter estates since he must have had the proper paperwork for you Master Clinkscale,” I said with a raised eyebrow and a bit of a smirk. The Nation doesn’t care much for wizarding laws, they would have to follow the Nation’s paperwork in order to access such a vast account as the Potters.

“They have all certainly tried,” wheezed the elderly goblin before running a palm over his bald head. “But none have brought me something like this. It will be given the most thorough of tests and if it is a lie or in anyway coerced then it will be you who will pay the price.”

I waved my hand and shook my head, “That’s fine. If it were not for the many security issues the young boy faces, I would have brought him with me. In fact I would like to set up a time to do just that with you and with the healers of the Nation.”

“Healers?”

“You said there was a wizard charged with the duty of Harry Potter’s care? He hasn’t done anything to help the boy. Quite the opposite in fact. He has not seen nor interacted with the boy since that night. Purposely leaving him with people who would not act in his best interests. The child is severely malnourished due to repeated bouts of starvation.”

Clinkscale leaned back in his chair, the springs squeaking under his bulk, his eyes going to the wall where his weapons hung. For the most part such weapons were ceremonial, but every goblin regardless of age, class, or gender would have been trained to use them. His gaze turned sharply back to his desk and his nails tapped out a brisk staccato pattern on a smooth rock there before he picked up the contract and swiftly put it in a drawer to his left. There was a slight glow that even I could pick up on and it made me realize he had sent off the contract to be verified.

“How exactly do you know these things?”

“I know them because I am the one who is meant to tell Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore what is going on in the supposedly safe house and I have done just that. I have sent letters and pictures. I have had arguments and angry words. He has done nothing. I will not stand by while he tries to make this child into his perfect weapon.” I hadn’t done quite such a good job of holding back the righteous fury that had been burning in me for so long now and Master Clinkscale blinked at me for a bit before letting out a sigh.

“While we await the confirmation of your supposed contract with Mister Potter, I would be willing to hear your tale and what it is you wish to plan for in regards to the Potter accounts.”

Clinkscale and I were taking a tea break after several hours of discussion. The goblins make tea like artists paint canvas and it is always brilliant. The contract had finally been verified, confirming that Harry Potter had made me his representative to the Goblin Nation and the Bank of Gringotts. The confirming of the contract was both a relief and a great source of anger for him as it also confirmed that what I had just spent all this time discussing with him was truthful.

“Madam, you are looking to wage a war.”

“Actually, it’s the exact opposite,” I said with a sharp smile. “Albus wishes to inflame tensions between various magical Beings and create war which he can then win by using Harry as his willingly martyred weapon. I want to stop him from doing this and I want to ensure that Harry, and the rest of the magical world, don’t have to deal with him or with Tom ever again.”

I had told Clinkscale the true origins of Voldemort during our discussion and was only slightly surprised by how unsurprised he looked at the reveal. It gave me hope that the goblins had a better understanding of what was truly going on than the wixen.

But he did not say anything to indicate that he had known the truth of Tom Marvolo Riddle, he didn’t say anything at all about anything really. Instead simply encouraged me to keep speaking on everything that I knew. I had left some things out as it would be odd for me to know and other things I had presented more as theories than knowledge, but it was such a relief to feel like I could share this burden with someone.

I knew that Clinkscale needed to be trusted in order to pull off everything I had already planned, and no doubt for everything that I had yet to plan as well. Knowing that the Nation considered the bonds between managers and the account holders as an honored trust, I knew that I could tell him a great deal. After all, I would be considered the account holder as soon as the contract was verified.

“I am intrigued by your idea of removing Mister Potter without actually removing him. Gringotts has in its service several teams that would be most helpful with that, but the issue of the house and family being charmed by Dumbledore would mean that they would need access not just to the house or the family. They would need the family to be in the house and they would need to be able to potentially cast on the family while they are in the house.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem Master Clinkscale. I’ve already thought of a few ways to remove the family from the house in order for the necessary changes to be made. I would just need to make sure that these individuals would be under extremely strict contracts so that Harry’s location was not compromised further. I would also need them to dress and act appropriately muggle.”

“As long as you can get them into the property while the family is there and allowing for minimal casting, then the rest is a nonissue. What will be an issue is that while you will have the complete support of Gringotts Bank as a recognized representative of a major account holder, the support you can have outside of the bank is heavily limited. The wixen government of Britain has imposed their will and made Albus Dumbledore the guardian of Mister Potter. This will effect areas outside of the Nation’s control. Including the allocation of some properties.”

“I already have a guardianship agreement ready to be signed by the closest blood relative of Harry Potter. According to our own laws if a muggleborn or half blood child is being raised in the muggle world and those guardians sign over the child to someone who is a part of the magical world then it must be recognized by the Ministry of Magic even if such documents were done on the muggle side of the divide.”

“While that is quite cunning, you won’t be lodging this with either government for some time. Until you are the officially recognized legally bound guardian of Mister Potter there will be some restrictions that we must carefully adhere to lest it get back to certain individuals.”

“What are the restrictions,” I sighed in defeat. It would be years before I could be legally recognized as Harry’s guardian even though we were setting it all up now.

“As the recognized representative you will have access to all vaults within Gringotts as well as to any properties or homes that are being maintained under contract by the Nation outside of the Bank. This includes several estates and their contents which would be of great use to Mr Potter. These specific estates are well hidden and protected, but do not need the young heir to do anything to allow the admittance of a potential unknown like yourself. If it is unnecessary for him to remain in close proximity to the blood relations of his mother then you could both move in while continuing your ruse for Albus Dumbledore.”

I might have paled a bit at the idea of living in a fully magical home like those Clinkscale was recommending. An all magic home requires one to have active magic to actually live in it and it is sometimes dangerous rather than just inconvenient to live in such a place. After my parents had died, f*cking dragon pox, I had been left with a fair amount of money and a percentage of the property which I was to share with my siblings. Things being as they were, my magically active siblings believed that they were helping me by offering their shares of the family home for me to solely inherit. But that was very far from the truth as I would have been completely dependent on a house elf for everything, even just for making a cup of tea. In the end I convinced them that I was very happy living with my wife in the muggle world and they bought out my share of the property.

“With my inability to actively use magic, Master Clinkscale, it would be unwise for us to relocate to a fully magical house.”

“I thought as much, however, the other properties that would suit you better are ones that you will be restricted from using. The Potters diversified further into the muggle world than most of the old families, chiefly due to Lily Potter’s influence. They bought companies, patents, real estate, and more on the muggle side of the divide. The laws surrounding such things are extremely complex and restrictive. Made even more so as you will not be seen as a wholly legitimate guardian for Mr Potter. This scheme gives you a great deal of legal legitimacy and would be enough according the laws of the Ministry of Magic. However, if you do not lodge it properly, you will not be able to access the muggle side of the accounts. And, Madam Figg, you want access to the muggle side of the accounts.”

That had me raising my eyebrows. While it would be nice to have access to muggle based properties the emphasis he was putting on them had me curious. “What in particular do you think I need access to exactly? Perhaps there is a way around the restrictions on that particular part of the accounts?”

“The late James Potter, under the guidance of his wife, bought major shares in multiple areas under the muggle based company Silver Hynd, Inc. This investment company had a wide range of interests and it has paid off in dividends that were then reinvested to buy more shares as per the last directions of the Potters. The Silver Hynd company holds the majority shares for a drill making conglomerate based out of Surrey by the name of Grunnings. Are you familiar with it?”

The laughter had started up slowly, a little huffing giggle, before I eventually was wiping tears from my eyes and barely breathing. Oh, the things that we could do with that. Bless the Potters for such foresight. A prank worthy of a Marauder too.

Once I had calmed down and taken a few more sips of my exquisite tea, Clinkscale felt it safe to continue with his explanation. “However, because it is a muggle based company with muggle based investments there are restrictions on what we can and cannot do without the direction of the Potters or of Mister Potter’s legally recognized guardian.”

“I understand. You have to work off whatever parameters the late Potters set until someone that is recognized by the Ministry and by Gringotts both can tell you otherwise.”

“Or when Mister Potter becomes a legally recognized adult on either side of the divide. While the Ministry of Magic may have forcibly made Albus Dumbledore the legal guardian of Mister Potter they broke their own laws to do it. They have sealed the Will that the Potters left. Gringotts has copies, as is required by such large accounts, but a Will that is sealed cannot be given a legal reading. Without a legal reading the recognized godparents are considered the heir’s legal guardian with no recourse for another appointment by anyone. While Alice Longbottom has been recognized as being unable to care for children, Sirius Black has not been removed as the proper legal guardian of Harry Potter.”

“Should a guardian be convicted of a heinous enough crime that they are sentenced to life in Azkaban, then they are automatically found unfit,” I said with a sly look at the goblin. I had only presented Sirius Black’s innocence to Clinkscale as a theory and not a reality, it was interesting that the goblin was already aware that Sirius was innocent.

“Indeed and if the heir Black had been convicted of a life sentence the books within the Nation’s archives would have automatically reflected that as such a thing would create havoc for the accounts.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh, rolling my shoulders and pushing forward. “Going back to Silver Hynd. The only person that could tell you to do differently is Sirius and he is indisposed and will be for quite a while. Harry would have to be a legally recognized adult or I would have to be a fully legally recognized guardian for us to make changes to the company’s standing practice.”

“Exactly right, we must follow the directives to acquire as much of the company as possible so we are restricted from selling it to you to allow you a way to ruin the company.”

“What if we didn’t ruin the company?” There was a murderous glare thrown my way at such a blasphemous proposition. “Hear me out. The company itself hasn’t done anything to harm Harry. It’s all the Dursleys. We don’t want to ruin the company we want to use the company to ruin the Dursleys.”

“How exactly would you make that happen? Doing one without the other would be difficult.”

“Only for someone who doesn’t know the Dursleys. As a majority shareholder does Silver Hynd have the ability to make decisions for Grunnings? Can you arrange for that under your current directives?”

“There is a board in place to represent the interests of Silver Hynd. They can make some changes, there are still restrictions, but it is possible for some things. What do you have in mind?”

“I want to give Vernon Dursley a promotion. I want to give him everything he ever thought he wanted. I want Petunia Dursley to think that she is on top of the world and that nothing as good as this has ever happened to her. I want them to be ecstatic at the opportunity. And then I want to rip the carpet out from under them and leave them stranded in conditions that are only slightly more humane than what they did to Harry.”

Clinkscale showed all his teeth in a vicious snarl that must have reflected the one on my own face as he nodded along. One should never do harm to the children under a goblin’s care.

9 January 1985

It was early morning by the time I returned to my home on Wisteria. Meeting with Clinkscale in the evening had meant that I hadn’t left his office until it was so late that it was the next day. For a fee I was offered the use of the floo exclusively reserved for large account holders, it was a steep fee but so worth it. I stumbled around putting things to right for the hungry cats, taking my evening potions, and going to bed without even showering. Things would move much quicker now.

By this coming weekend we would know the measure of what Albus had done at the Dursley’s and to the Dursleys. The Beings that would accompany myself and John would be disguised so that their features were not distinguishable, a common approach these teams used while in high muggle areas, and they would disguise their equipment to look like muggle devices that worked with our scheme. We had even mapped out getting the Dursleys camera ready and how this time could be used for the diagnostic spells the team would need to perform on them while they were in the home. They would also use the time to ready set ups for the physical changes that we would be making to the house. The flashes from their wands would be easily disguised as camera flashes and tests of ambient lighting for their photoshoot.

While they were off doing that I would be fast talking the Dursleys through a hundred or more pieces of paper that looked like official muggle legal documents. Some of them would be exactly what I told them they were, especially the first few, but most of them would be disguised documents that Clinkscale had worked up to ensure that the Dursley family wouldn’t be an issue later on. There was also the muggle contract that the Dursleys would have to sign which was basically a shared custody agreement.

The wording worked out by the solicitor was altered slightly by the legal team that was apparently on call at all times for the large account holders at Gringotts. Though the copy we had given them did not have Harry’s name on it they were able to adjust the wording so that it would be even more aligned with the magical laws that allowed someone the complete guardianship of a half blood or muggleborn child being raised in the muggle world. After the Dursleys signed it all I would have to do was lodge it with the Ministry of Magic. They would either have to admit that Sirius Black should still be his rightful guardian or recognize me as such.

The Dursleys would sign anything that I put in front of them and be happy about it by the time we got to that document. John would be happy because I would repeatedly be asking them to read the documents that they were signing. Gringotts would be happy because they could get some greater movement on the Potter accounts and protect the future of the estate. Harry and I would be happy because it would mean he would be free from the terror of the Dursleys.

Clinkscale and I had gone over the short and long term plans for the Dursleys. They needed to be there long enough to deal with Albus, but not so long that they became a nuisance. They also needed to be horribly punished for the things that they had done, but we didn’t want to cross lines into doing anything illegal per se.

We both agreed that the best ways to accomplish this was a year long campaign on the Dursley family. Starting with the Disney Scheme. This accomplished getting into the house and around the family at the same time and got them out of the house for a long period of time. The contracts that they sign will include allowing the changes and the remodeling of the house while they are away. Which allows for a safer place for Harry to exist in if he must stay with Petunia and her blood. The big win also gave them a positive emotional lift.

After the Disney Scheme would come the Little Troubles Scheme. Designed to give everyone small bits of bad luck from bad hair days to stepping in gum and escalate from there, this part of the campaign would have the Dursleys nostalgic for their time abroad. Since Harry would already be safe from the wrath they would build up, they would have no one to take their bad moods out on.

Once they were primed, the Board of Directors would announce that they had been searching for the best of the best amongst all of the companies in their umbrella and only Vernon Dursley would do. They wanted him to be the one to open up a whole new market for a new branch, it wouldn’t be drills, but his commission and bonuses would be incredibly handsome. They would have to move right away though. The Snap Scheme would only happen if we were certain that Harry could live without Petunia’s constant presence to add to his protections. But when it did the Dursleys would find themselves living in a small, thin walled studio, with their income completely dependent on whether or not Vernon could sell tacky commemorative plates of British historical figures to the people of Japan.

Author's Note

This chapter was actually the initial inspiration for the story. I'm a fan of all of the big tropes and wanted something more with the goblins that I just wasn't finding. I love the Revenge on the Dursley stories too. My favorite is the Shopping Spree on Diagon Alley, though my equivalent of that trope mostly shows greater details of what it's like to be a person of more than one world/culture/race/etc as well as what is considered a disability and how that effects the characters.

I have decided to do two updates in January so that the chapter that ends on Valentine's Day will be the update in February. I did not initially plan to have the Valentine's Day chapter update in February, but it's a nice coincidence.

Chapter 10: Short Memories and Long Histories

Chapter Text

8 January 1985

It seemed every year brought with it those that believed I would be fool enough for them to access the accounts over which I was Master. This evening would undoubtedly bring with it another con to tempt or frighten me into allowing them access. It would never work, but the strange humans continued to try.

My clan had served as the account managers for the Potter family since they became Potters. Before the goblin Gringotts even thought to build the physical bank to offer services from instead of using the old ways. Now there was a wixen worth investing in, Linfred had repeatedly multiplied the value of his accounts and then his son and grandson had done the same. It may have skipped around a bit, but when I became the Manager of Estates and took up the role as Master of the Potter accounts it was just before Fleamont Potter was born and he would create another boon for the accounts.

As I settled into my office I sighed a bit at the remembrance. It would be some time before the young Mister Potter was ready and able to make the gold move again.

It truly was too bad that one of our treaties with the wixen government included clauses that forbid the "kidnapping or taking of human children" as if that had ever been something that we did. Kidnapping implies that beloved children were stolen from their beds, that was never the way of the Nation. The humans used to leave their children for us in enchanted forests. Sometimes they did this because there was not enough food, sometimes it was because a sickness was killing them, and sometimes it was because there was no love or want of the child. Sometimes the young of those horrible families would believe themselves safer in fabled woods or darkened caves. We would often find them and bring them into our homes, helped them trust again. We took these children into our clans. We taught them how to sing to the earth. They laughed and danced in our halls. They were never stolen from their homes. We gave them homes.

The treaties have been important. We have found that with the memory of these divided humans being so short we must have such agreements to remind them. The treaties state that no goblin can claim any human as kin, not that this stopped our human family members from calling us kin. After all, a good third of all the humans that are contracted for services by the Nation are descendants of our human kin taken in before the treaties. Kin that has grown in our halls.

The chair squeaked a bit as I settled behind my desk. The appointment time was fast approaching and I needed to have a clear head for whatever tricks this one would bring.

It was odd, though, that this human would try such a thing. They were well known amongst the tellers because of the disguise. Magical disguises were nothing new to Gringotts, but were required to be removed once not around other humans. All wixen knew, of course, that the goblins were perfectly capable of seeing through such things. This one was different, however, in that they used a disguise that did not require magic at all.

While I did not know what tricks she might try during this meeting it was my sworn duty to protect the Potter accounts as its Manager of Estates and there was nothing I would not do to ensure that safety.

I looked at the clock again, it was nearly time to finally meet Madam Figg.

To say that it was a shock to be presented with an official Gringotts contract for representation would be too tame a word. I could smell the blood binding the contract before Madam Figg had even taken the form from her bag. So long have I been with the Potters that the smell of the magic that lingers in their blood is well known to me. The innumerable emotions that ran through my being as I processed the smell of it, the sting of it, would take me the rest of my lifetime to sort through. That this magic should grace the pages of a goblin contract as the first time that I meet my new charge brought a tightness to my chest.

Foolish humans.

They think Goblins to be a foolish warrior race only because they cannot remember their own history. They have too often destroyed their elders before stories and songs can be passed on. Before old knowledge can be learned from them. They end themselves over and over, but think us nothing more than greedy brutes.

There was time to rant at the unjustness of the world when I could howl at the stones, for now there were protocols. The contract would need to be authenticated. The boy would still be very young and small by human terms. One could easily force a quill in his hand and make him write his name. Goblin contracts are all written on potion soaked papers that should prevent such a thing, but it would need to be checked. Furthermore, I would be having his blood checked for any potion residue. If she had used one of the many potions to force him to sign it would be found. Knowing she could not wield enough magic to use a wand did ensure that she at least had not used any of those methods to force a signature. These were not normal checks, and in truth there was little that could be legally done to end such a contract if potions had been used. But I could do many, many things around that contract to ensure the safety of the accounts until Mister Potter was more able should such things be revealed in the test.

Her ability to not show nervousness or fear at this test could mean too many things. Was she so arrogant that she believed we would never find a deception? Or was she a true representative of Mister Potter? There were others that had tried to claim the accounts, on so many different grounds, but they failed because they could not produce either this contract or the boy himself. Even the wixen government had tried to force the issue by making Albus Dumbledore the boy’s guardian. But because they continued to fail to convict heir Black, the rightful guardian, they could not lawfully appoint another guardian with privileges within Gringotts.

But here Madam Figg is with a blood signed contract and speaking of bringing the young boy in himself. The trap would have to be substantial in order to pass by the canny healers of the Nation. Then to accuse someone of not just not caring for a child, any child, but to say they are actively and purposely abusing the child? A rage seared through me. Everything she said would have to be verified over and again, but for now- for now I would listen.

Hours passed as the woman spoke, a rushing of water falling on sharp polished rocks. Her time during the war and what she had been for Dumbledore were surmised so that she might continue with the story of how she became caretaker for the hope of the wizarding world. The forcefulness of her emotions when it came to these Dursleys that the child had been entrusted to was sharp and cutting as it sung within my office. I needed a momentary respite from the onslaught and suggested a tea after I had read the report for the contract.

This evening we would need something calming and fortifying if we were to work together on the plight of Mister Potter. The preparations allowed me the time to let the new knowledge linger and brew within me.

While it seemed much had been forgotten by the wixen, even of just the last century, due to their constant insistence of destroying each other, this woman knew things that had been forgotten by her own society. She even recalled that this Dark Lord Voldemort was once named Tom Riddle. She also recognized that the heir Black was not as guilty as the rest of her kind believed. And unlike so many wixen she had not forgotten that the Boy Who Lived was actually an orphaned child.

I motioned her to the more comfortable chairs so that we could enjoy our tea. Settling into the polished leather cushions, I was relieved that there was someone whose sharp edge would be willingly used to Mr Potter’s benefit. Someone who had an extreme amount of access and knowledge. Someone whose plan I believed would work in the short term while we worked on larger scale issues. Protecting the child and giving us time to do what we must.

It was an intriguing idea to move something, or in this case someone, without actually removing them. The teams would be able to get a better read on anything that Dumbledore had done to the house and the family, but I had no doubt that breaking whatever he left behind would alert him to the change. We absolutely needed to ensure that wouldn’t happen. This woman was looking to wage a war for Mr Potter and we could not tip off the enemy before we were prepared to face him.

The Dursleys, however, required little such consideration if a loophole could be found to keep Dumbledore ignorant. Vernon Dursley was slowly, but surely making his way up to director at Grunnings. As someone in an executive position who had close ties to the finances of his company it would be incredibly easy to destroy both with some fabricated illicit money movement. However, the late Potters had left Gringotts with the directive to invest in the company and to continue to do so. Gringotts would be unable to make such a maneuver, even if we were willing to overlook the slightly illegal nature of such a move. If we could sell it to Madam Figg she would no doubt destroy it and perhaps dance on the ashes. But even this we could not do while under the directives of the late Potters. If only heir Black were available to us we would be able to do so much.

It had become a repeated talking point between myself and the clan holding the Black accounts. With the heir falsely imprisoned he could still inherit as long as Lord Black allowed it and with no other direct heirs available to him it is the most obvious choice. The wars had wiped out most of the ancient house on the direct line. However, if Lord Black wanted his grandson out of Azkaban he would surely have tried something by this point. There was rumor that Lord Black, though surviving the wars physically, had not made it through with all his mettle intact. It was obvious to all those in the know that Lucius Malfoy was going to attempt to gain access to the Black accounts through the use of his son, but the younger Malfoy was descendent from another branch of the Black family and not its main line. Unless all other male heirs died his child would never inherit the title.

Such strange things these titles. They are not won in battle or earned in scholarship. Only blood and magic can grant them. The magic will recognize that the one attempting to be Lord is not the one who actually is Lord. This is lost magic. The humans have forgotten these magics as they have forgotten nearly everything else that they consider to be old or ancient. So short their memories that they do not remember themselves. Yet these magics live on in these traditions. Magics worked to decide inheritance back then still work now, but they decide title and inheritance. These titles grant them power within their government. An evolution of their governing after splitting with their muggle counterparts more and more over the centuries.

For my people it seems so much easier, so much more obvious. A babe will be born to a clan. Each clan has accounts it safeguards already, but each member of the clan will try to entice or claim more accounts. One studies the Core Lessons as a child and the Greater Lessons as a young adult. Then one works within the bank, the caverns, the mint, etc to study the Journey Lessons. After that one may take up a mastery in whichever subject best suits them. It is only when one is a Master that they are elevated to such positions as Manager of Estates in the way that I am. No magic decides that I should be one to create laws followed by my people, nor to impose laws on other Beings or Creatures.

It’s not even truly a title of great power either. Over the many years the privileges those aristocrats had were slowly stripped. Occasionally it was because that same protection was given to all humans and so having it solely for them was no longer special. Sometimes it was taken from them so that they could no longer abuse the people they were supposedly sworn to guide. These days, however, it was because about a century and a half ago the aristocracy began to compete over how different they could be from their muggle counterparts. Eventually, one enterprising young inheritor decided that while he would be head of his house and take up his noble place on the Wizengamot, he would not officially take up his title as Lord. The waves that this caused was that nearly all of the aristocracy in Magical Britain gave up or did not take up their titles. In one astounding case of wanting to be as unmuggle as possible, a Lord had himself fully divested of his own titles and abdicated it for his whole line.

Apparently, he was too stupid to realize that this divested the whole line of a seat on the Wizengamot as well.

For a fee I had allowed the new account holder of the Potter accounts to use the Gringotts floo. We had both been in my office making plans and schemes for so long that it was a new day. I had called upon our legal team to go over the wording of the guardianship contract Madam Figg had for the Dursley adults to sign. Their forté was financials, but often the family conflicts over financial arrangements can require legal assistance. Madam Figg had asked a great number of interesting legal questions and we had secured what was needed, with slightly altered wording from the original, on a Gringotts document. It would be beyond incontestable once presented.

We now had an outline of our attacks against the heinous chizpurfles that dared to harm a child in their own care. A child that I had been waiting for as he had suffered.

As I tidied my office, I thought of the glimmers of silver that hung upon my walls. Every goblin learns to defend themselves in the traditional manner as soon as they can hold the Falchtoc, a double edged sword. When one earned their mastery in their chosen subject they also fought the traditional Chaa before being presented with their Falchtuck. Where the Falchtoc was plain the Falchtuck was glorious in its beauty, carved designs and empowered jewels. Both swords were fierce in the hands of a goblin, but the Falchtuck demonstrated a devotion to not just the clan but also the Nation. That a goblin had devoted themselves to a mastery of a subject to help move the Nation forward. The Chaa was an elaborate battle dance, there was always the risk of injury, but the steps were known. It was a dance based on stories from our elders depicting some of the first battles, this was how we sang our history.

I had already put in the necessary requests for personnel and tools, meetings lined up for later today to begin the war against Albus Dumbledore. Madam Figg did not believe it a war, she believed she was stopping war. The truth was more complicated.

Dumbledore was not the type to release his game pieces without a fight, the board was his to do with as he pleased and everyone on it was just another way for him to win. I could admire his strategic mind even as I was disgusted by his maneuvering and mechanisms. He was so focused on winning against a single opponent that he forgot his own people. Using whatever means to close the battle, this was not a tactic that the Nation approved of in war or in life.

Humans, strangely, used this tactic against each other often. Send hundreds to die on a beach so that those that follow could climb over the dead bodies of their compatriots towards a supposed victory. Withdraw protections from one city so that the next city can have a larger battle, leaving behind unprotected innocents. Pillage the gold or oil or jewels from a land they have no claim over while destroying the humans that are native to it. Perhaps it is because they have this strange sense of other. Every goblin is a goblin, even the humans that call us kin are goblin. There is no other within the Nation. These humans, they separate themselves by borders or skin tone or magical parentage. They forget they are all human, there is no other. Perhaps that is why we have so many issues with the humans, their short memories and the continued violence they inflict on themselves.

With a sigh I put the last of the paperwork away and sit in contemplation. From what she had told me about the Dursleys they were the worst of humans. Memories so short they could not even remember those of their own generation, Lily Potter had been this Dursley’s own sister and she had forgotten any kinship there. On top of that they create an other of everyone who is not themselves, Vernon and Petunia believing that none could be as they are, with the only exception being their son Dudley. I recall being told that there had been a split and an estrangement between the sisters, but for it to be this far removed from reality is a heavy stone.

When the Potters spoke to me about investing in the company that their brother-in-law was working for they seemed to be doing it in an abundance of caution. I can admit to myself that I thought it was a caution to ensure that their kin did not fail in their endeavors, but now I realize it was a caution in case their kin became too radical. A power move to keep such reprehensible people in check should it ever be needed. Though perhaps they would go about the maneuvering differently were they still among the living, I believe we are going along with their truest wishes.

By Monday morning Silver Hynd will be acquiring a new company, one that produces truly garish tableware, and a not so sincere search for an acceptable seller of such wares will begin. I will be making sure that Vernon Dursley’s new contract for his “promotion” will be unbreakable and riddled with awe inspiring requirements. His income will be slashed to a sixteenth of what he brings in now. Though it will certainly look as though he will make incredible bonuses for selling this newly acquired product, he will never sell enough to be able to make his quota.

We could have had the business be located anywhere as long as it was outside of the UK, but Madam Figg was insistent on it being Japan. It seemed to be another of the human oddities as I don’t understand how the humor of a golfing joke would cause the Dursley adults the abject horror Madam Figg seemed to be imagining for them when we narrowed down the place to send them. We had considered many places, but Madam Figg rejected all others. She wanted them punished, not the people around them, and she did not want them in a place where a war may cause them physical harm. I suppose war was more likely in Eastern European countries like Romania than in Japan. And the places we considered in Africa or South America would simply cement their prejudices and do harm to those around them.

I briefly considered sleeping for a few hours before I needed to start in on contracts and plans for all those meetings. Today was going to be a long day. No reason to sleep when something so interesting and new was just beginning. I settled back into my desk and took out a new sheet and pen. Now, how many of those plates could Vernon Dursley hope to sell?

Chapter 11: The Most Magical Place on Earth

Chapter Text

9 January 1985

I stabbed myself again.

I took one of the little plasters I had nearby and stuck it on this new finger in the hopes that my craft would not be anointed with any more of my blood. I had come up with this idea when I was doing my exercises this morning. Then I went out after a light meal and got some harnesses for small dogs and I was now trying to sew them in such a way that there would be a cloth covered backing with a pocket sewn on.

Harry and I couldn’t be seen doing anything that would be deemed odd or unusual behavior, especially around the upcoming events. We had no reason to seek one another out or give each other anything. The Dursleys rarely let the child out of the house long enough for one of my lookouts to alert me and me to amble my way over. No, we needed a different solution and this was it.

Mr Tibbles was going to wear this harness with a pocket and go lay in wait at the Dursley house. When he saw Harry he would approach the boy once the coast was clear. Harry should be clever enough to look in the pocket, but I had faith that Mr Tibbles could encourage him if need be. The pocket is big enough to fit the extended pouch and a square of paper with instructions.

This way Harry would have food and essentials as we worked on getting him out of his own personal hell. It was exceedingly important to get it to him as soon as possible for other reasons as well. Inside the pouch was a will weakening potion. On Saturday morning Harry would be pressed into making the usual large weekend breakfast for the Dursleys. He would need to follow the directions to ensure each Dursley had at least three drops of the potion with their breakfast.

Will weakening potions can take many forms, some are extremely dangerous, but this one was a recipe I had used many times during the war. It was the equivalent of perhaps one too many drinks at the bar. It made one a bit happy and willing to go along with things, perhaps a bit confused but content with a situation. For a spy it was the perfect way to test sources and to gain information. It was not the Imperius, no one could be forced to do something that they didn’t want to do. They just became happier to help with things they would normally want anyway. The real trick was making sure that the dosed individual really wanted to help.

I knew I hadn’t been sleeping well, or sometimes at all, since waking up as a whole new person. But this afternoon I woke up after many blissful hours of sleep nearly content and at peace. I had accomplished a great deal with the help of Clinkscale and had started many things rolling during our long talks. And, to be very honest, it was nice to have someone else willing to share the burden. John would be a great help, but he was never going to be as involved as Clinkscale. The Manager of the Potter Estates would be in meetings for most of today. The rest of the week would be preparing teams to help Harry before culminating in what would truly be an award winning performance on Saturday morning.

I already had a notepad going with all the things I would be including in this extended pouch besides the will weakening potion and instructions for this weekend. Originally, I had wanted to start Harry on his own potions regimen to get him going on better health. The goblins most firmly nixed that idea. They had told me that a child with as many potential health issues as I had described should be thoroughly examined first. I’m glad that I thought to mention it when we were making appointments for Harry to have an exam. I suppose I just wanted to get everything moving now, but I would feel awful if my trying to help just made him more ill.

For now the pouch would contain fun and essential things. It would have enough food for two full meals a day and several easy snacks. It would have a glow orb, which would react to Harry’s natural magic to turn it on or off. It would also have puzzle books, coloring books, pencils and crayons, and one book to read that would rotate if he put it back in the pouch. The first was on the history of Magical Britain, a small primer for young children before entering Hogwarts. I needed to help him not just with his physical health, but also with his mental health. When he wasn’t being used as slave labor he was shoved into a dark cupboard, like a mop bucket that hadn’t a use at the moment. It’s an awful thing. With these activity books and things that were just for him, I hoped to help him get through this difficult time as I worked to get him away from his monsters.

Darn it, why hadn’t I learnt to sew better in any of my lifetimes?

I reached for another plaster and then continued with my project.

12 January 1985

Over the years I had made contact with a dotty old cat lady, a middle aged woman doing the shopping, a chatty squib on a very particular bus, and on one memorable occasion a dog walker with more dogs than she could handle.

I never did find out where she had gotten those dogs, or what happened to them after. I simply had something of note that required immediate attention and could not be written, not even in code. Then she was there and I was tangled in leashes and frantic apologies as we passed information along discreetly under the distraction. Thankfully, magical listening charms could only listen in on a wide unprotected area. Nothing like those fanciful "bugs" from muggle cinema.

I never had to move into something outside of my comfort zone in order to be of assistance, not really. Instead I simply gathered information as I went about my daily life, perhaps spending a little longer talking than I might but nothing too terrible. I had different social circles than she did and an entirely different path, so it was the most obvious of things for us to work together. From there we, or really she, began forming a wide ranging network of precisely positioned like minded friends.

The Wold family was not considered traditionally pure as we had no problem with muggleborns, but to many it was a stable wizarding family that had been around a very long time. We were never titled or a part of that perfidious book that listed the so-called pureblooded families. The Wold’s were more on the level of the Cattermole family. Well known, well liked, not brimming with money or self importance. There was usually at least one of us being schooled at Hogwarts at any point in time. Though the wars, both muggle and magical, had thinned the branches too much for that now.

Being a Wold had afforded me a comfort that people rarely have in life. My family had enough money and love for all of us, even when it became obvious that I would not be attending Hogwarts. For many years I worked extremely hard at my education, thinking that I needed to prove to everyone that I deserved to be taken seriously. Or perhaps, more honestly, that I still deserved to be a Wold when I had no magic. Then it was to prove that I could make it on my own in the muggle world, standing on my own two feet.

By the time it was confirmed no letter from Hogwarts would come addressed to John Wold, the bombings were ongoing and it felt like war would never end. There was constant fear and grief. My parents feared the darkness that Grindelwald was slowly suffocating our world in and the weapons that the muggles were using to decimate everything, so horrific they were nearly unimaginable to us. I know that there were many, many arguments over what to do with me. Not because they were ashamed, but because they were afraid. Because the soil of the world was being turned black with blood and it seemed it would go on forever. They didn’t want my blood added to that unending sorrow.

In the end they decided that there would simply be a year where I stayed at home and studied muggle subjects until they felt I was ready to attend school with others my age. They also used it as an excuse to have the time to find an acceptable school for me. It worked out in everyone’s favor, though they could not have predicated that it would. By the end of that year both Hitler and Grindelwald had been defeated, and there seemed to be a cautious hope stirring.

I often think back on that year of uncertainty, when it felt like death and darkness stalked me, and how much it shaped my journey. If it were not for the very precise timing of everything I would not be the man that I am today. I certainly wouldn’t have looked at the disappearances and odd deaths the way that I did in the early seventies. It was odd to not know what was happening, but to feel you knew what was happening.

These weren’t the sort of people that would uproot themselves to follow a charismatic leader on a revolution. They were the fodder, the blood in the dirt.

When I was initially approached about helping it was not a profound moment, it was not a recruitment by some staunch supporter or by Dumbledore himself, instead it was a simple cup of tea and a newspaper.

During the sixties many people began to be more outspoken about the rights of various groups. When squibs and their families marched for their rights to exist and have some form of help or protections, the darker pureblood families rioted against such aberrations to the status quo. My family had not wished to partake in such walks and protests and I lived so much in the muggle world that it hardly seemed appropriate to raise my voice. The aftermath of such pushes and pushbacks, however, was that even if the squib had only before been whispered about existing in a family there was now a record of them that anyone could find. That’s how they were finding us in the seventies to kill us, but that’s also how she found us to help us.

I was having a nice darjeeling at my usual club, not even paying attention to my surroundings, when a paper was set down on the table next to me. I glanced down at it and then around for who might have set it there, before my eyes darted back after realizing that the pictures were moving. I admit that I had initially thought it was a threat, but the card hidden in the paper held only four words and a phone number.

Arabella Figg was a woman on a mission. She was more immersed in the magical world than I had been since I was a boy and she was a force to be reckoned with when it came to protecting her world. She recognized the signs, just as I had, but realized that there was something there that could be used to help stop these terrorists. She told me about a building opposition that she had been personally recruited into and how she was using stereotypes to make herself unassuming and invisible to accumulate information to help them. She was taking things a step further by recruiting others like her that could help gain even further access to information on both the muggle and magical side of things.

It took more than a week and another sighting of a sickly skull over the burnt husk of a home for me to contact her and confirm that I would help.

I knew there were a few others, but it was important that we rarely if ever interacted. Should we be captured a well trained enemy could look into our minds and pull out whatever they might wish. One needed to have enough magic to be able to occlude against legilimency. Bella was our contact point in all things even when it became obvious that the information was going from her to Albus Dumbledore.

I spent several intensive months being drilled and trained in methods of her devising. Courses in not being followed or getting away when one was followed as well as learning to recognize useful information and how to pass it along without appearing out of place. We spoke in three or four different codes until it felt natural to do on the fly. We learned to speak to each other without saying a word.

After that though, I simply went back to my own life. I spent more time with my family and my family’s friends. I took my tea at a variety of magical cafés. I went shopping in the magical shopping districts more often. I used my connections as a muggle solicitor to find out what the upper echelons thought about what was happening. All I did was listen, make note, and pass it along to my handler. It was a prideful thing that made me feel as though I belonged a little more in the wizarding world. Or perhaps as if the wizarding world might belong more to me.

There were increased dangers, of course, but seeing as an entire faction of people wanted to murder me and display my death in such a way as to strike fear in the hearts of others the danger seemed minimally different.

That feeling changed after seventy-three though.

It was absolutely against the established protocols, but I went to her when I learned what had happened. When they said that she had gone into the still burning building to find her wife. What was left of her wife. When what my friend held most dear in all the world was ripped away from her.

Bella had trusted me enough to meet her wife a few times. She was a brilliant and lovely woman who was helping the war effort through her potions. Although, to hear her tell it, Bella was doing just as much potion making as she was.

The death of her beloved wife changed Bella deeply. Everyone grieves during war, but Bella refused to do so. There was too much to be done.

It was as though she pushed it so far down that her very bones absorbed the grief of it.

As things became more violent and more insidious, we needed to become more subtle and more creative. Anyone we knew had the potential to be under the imperius curse. There were random checks added to our already intensive security measures. There were meeting places further afield from our usual haunts. Enchanted objects that would confirm identity even if a person was using polyjuice. A higher use of muggle based technology that we knew the enemy wouldn’t understand. Safe houses that were known only to the Squib Squad, as Bella sometimes called us, so that they would not be compromised by the fighters when the intel gatherers needed to be pulled out.

Watching her work, knowing it was her at the top organizing all of this so that it could make a difference in how Dumbledore directed his fighters, it was amazing.

It was magical.

As though I was watching a violent ballet of shadows and light.

I felt proud to have held a small role in making a difference.

To have helped make my world safer for people like me.

When Bella had arranged for a meeting in a way that spoke more of the old days than of a casual friendship, I was worried about what that might mean.

I was right to have worried.

After our meeting just four days previous, though it felt so much longer, I had gone back to the office to continue my work like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. When I finally arrived home I let the understandings of that meeting shatter me.

I knew, intellectually, that we had not truly won the war. That things were going very badly, we seemed in a horrible and bloody stalemate. After the defeat of You-Know-Who and the rounding up of the Death Eaters, it was easy to pretend. To wrap myself up in my pride and pat myself on the back for a job well done.

Faced with so many disturbing truths, or theories from a trusted source, I had to face that shame head on.

A small boy had been the downfall of a bloody and terrifying maniac. I had not actually done anything to help. I had not done anything since then to help the orphaned child. Instead Bella had been stationed as his guard, still suppressing her grief and war wounded.

I cannot imagine how far she had to pull herself up and out to be able to fight Albus Dumbledore for this child. That’s exactly what she was doing, fighting against the wizard who had led us against You-Know-Who. Ready to orchestrate a war against a man that insisted on having a child abused.

I was not entirely certain about her theories of Dumbledore wanting to make the young boy into an obscurial, but if she had argued with him and shown him proof of the abuse there seemed to be little other explanation. Everyone knew that abusing a magical child was likely to cause such a thing. To allow it to happen after being presented with photographs of bruises? Even if he hadn’t known about the rift between Lily Potter and her muggle sister, this was unacceptable.

She was right to warn me that it would be difficult to know about without acting on it. Perhaps that’s how she was able to raise herself from her wounded state. Someone vulnerable needed her and she would be damned if she didn’t help. That certainly sounded like the chaos causing, spy leading rebel I knew.

In agreeing to help her in the schemes to save this child I got to know an interesting side of Bella that I had not before witnessed. When passing along information to her during the war she would often be in some character, but since it was always such a brief meeting it never seemed so intense as this character she used against the Dursleys. I had also never seen her put someone else on and it was a frightening thing.

The teams that would be making their way to Little Whinging worked for Gringotts and it would not be odd for them to be at the bank all at once. This meant that Bella and myself simply had to casually go to appointments at the bank in order to meet up with them. After that there were several different security measures even though everyone but the two of us were under strict contracts, we all need to make sure that we were not tracked or followed in anyway that might compromise the safety of the Boy Who Lived.

As the line of cars met up with each other from their different, randomized routes the passengers arranged their disguises. Everyone but myself and Bella would be wearing black and a masking spell that made them appear nondescript. There were spells in place so that their equipment would resemble muggle electronics and tools. Bella had given me a new suit and a medallion with small crystals embedded into it on a chain that would change my coloring as well as my complexion. All of this seemed relatively minor compared to what I was watching happen with Bella herself.

She was in a smart pink Chanel number with Louis Vuitton heels and a matching bag that screamed money. A little row of pearls decorated her slender throat and a jeweled watch glittered on her wrist. With her hair pulled back in a twist, she looked more her age than I remembered her being for more than a decade. When she turned on her own medallion it turned her hair blonde and gave her a fair but rosy complexion. As soon as she changed her coloring it was like a switch was flipped. Her posture was different, her facial expression was different, the air around her seemed different. She was looking at her nails with the bored expression of a trophy wife who has listened to her husband drone on about the stock market one too many times.

She caught me staring open mouthed at her and she just… smiled.

Oh, she was going to kill these people. They were definitely going to die horrible, terrifying deaths. Their bodies would likely never be found, but if they were it would appear as though no crime had even been committed.

When she spoke it was with a husky whisper that I was certain was never before heard by man and I nearly jumped in my seat from the fright.

“See something interesting Johnny boy?”

As I swallowed the lump that was stuck in my throat she laughed at me in a way that told every instinct I had that this was a predator and I was just prey.

And then, just as quickly, it was gone and the bored wife with pretty jewelry was back.

I knew that she was a great actor. I had seen her change her physical appearance so much that she was nearly unrecognizable during the war several times. But I hadn’t seen her change her personality in such a way before, let alone right in front of me like it was nothing. It astounded me that she was somehow even more magnificent than I had realized during the war.

As we made our way into the Dursley property my role was clear, stay out of the way unless it is to notarize the documents. I stood off to the side while watching as the aptly named Hells Bells destroyed the Dursleys with their own greed. Building up the egos of their shallow prideful selves so that she could hang them with it whenever she pleased. At this point I was certain they would sign over their first born without realizing it if Bella put the right paperwork in front of them.

After finishing my bit with the paperwork, however, there wasn’t really anything for me to do. The teams that were inspecting everything were swarming around the house, the garden, and the Dursleys. Bella was there, or rather Sandra Moore was, flitting around the Dursleys to keep them distracted while all kinds of magic was used around them without their knowledge.

The kitchen had been set up as a makeup stage. On the floor there was laid out a thick canvas that Sandra Moore had informed them was to protect their beautiful kitchen. In reality, the cloth was specially made, infused with magic and runic writings to help the wizards and witches do their testings of the Dursley family without alerting them. The team in the garden was searching for anything that had been buried on the property as an anchor as well as finding the barrier that should be wrapped around the home. Sandra talked about how lovely it would be to get the photoshoot done outside in the spring after the happy family returned from their holiday. Of course, they would need to have measurements and lighting understandings and so on before then. Might as well do all of that now.

I did my best to keep my face impassive. I was never the greatest at covering my emotions and several times I just barely restrained a number of eye rolls and scoffs. Though I did raise a questioning brow when the Sandra Moore disguise started to slip as she argued about something in hushed tones with a team leader by the stairs. She just gave me a Sandra Moore smile and a shake of her head, the two women going their separate ways to finish their assigned tasks.

Hours later a sleek parade made its way out of Little Whinging before the cars split into pairs and then split up again to head towards different little hideaways. Having security measures like this might be over the top, but our opponent was Albus Dumbledore. A well positioned man in every part of our society. A man who could ask nearly anything of a large number of people and they would do it without question.

It was an easy thing for me to turn off the medallion and take off my disguise. I put back on my own clothing which had been hidden in an expanded pouch after it had been checked by Gringotts security. I watched Bella, she was actually Bella, as she attempted to get her hair under control. It was such an absurd thing to watch the woman struggle with some sort of clip in her hair after having spent much of the day being certain she was plotting the murder of a horrible family in Surrey.

“You are terrifying,” escaped an awed whisper.

She glared at me as she gave up on her still blonde hair. I was slightly worried that she might smack me.

“John you are well aware that I am not a stupid, doddering old lady.”

I felt a bit of a shock run through me. All day I had been trying to deal with this impossibly different woman. A change from the Bella at the beginning of the war, but not the Bella I knew after her wife had died either. I didn’t actually know how to put into words that she seemed to be an entirely new third Bella that could morph into her own characters, like Sandra Moore, with an ease that terrified me.

“Hells Bells, I just- I just think that I had forgotten exactly how good you actually are at this. I mean I look back at what we did,” I said as I gestured back and forth between us. “But you, on your own, you are on a different level. You actually became that woman. It was as though I walked in with a completely different person. But what really affected me,” I held up a hand to thwart anything she had been getting ready to say. “What really affected me was just now as you were ‘taking off’ this character. You were just you, struggling with your hair being you. Not a cat lady disguise, not a politician’s wife disguise, just you. And the change was so stark and so sudden that I am still experiencing a bit of a shock.”

“Thanks Johnny. I’m glad that even with someone who knows, I can still pull a turn on them.”

We smiled for a moment before turning our attention back to getting to the rendezvous point on time. The others would need to meet at another location and then make their way out from there. I would not be joining them for the meeting later. My part in all of this was supposedly done. But the rest of them had much to report on and continue with once they were in a more secure place.

I just wondered if this was truly the end of my part in her war, this new Bella against anyone who would hurt a little boy under her protection.

14 January 1985

I had seen a great deal in my field over the many years I had been doing this, more than most humans ever would. I think this ward, though, would probably be the one that made all my hard work worth it. The protections on this one child were insane and I am certain nothing like this had ever happened before, on purpose or on accident.

I rubbed my hands over my wrinkled face and breathed deeply. I felt old.

It wasn’t often that I felt old, though I was approaching 82 rather quickly. I was a daughter of the clans, raised in the Nation. My many greats grandparents had been brought in from the cold to dance in the halls. It was rare these days that a human of the clan would be descended from so many that had been of the Nation before them. Usually, a human of the clan would meet and marry a human from outside the Nation and bring them in if they wanted to stay with their clan after the marriage. My ancestors, though, consistently married other humans of the clan that stayed in the Nation. I guess you could say we were generations of homebodies.

The aging process between goblins and humans was vastly different. For the most part, humans will be fully mature adults physically at 27 years old. Humans that can create large amounts of ambient magical energy, proven in Britain by being able to use a wand, have the same developmental stages but with magic added in to make the process slightly different. Humans might live to about a hundred years, but with that magical ability their lifespan can be two hundred years. With goblins, though, their lifespan can average four hundred years and they have significantly different stages of development as well. Not that most lived that long due to disease and war.

As a magical human living around goblins I had often run into the problems associated with having such a vastly different range in what age is considered juvenile and when one would be considered an adult. There were often difficulties trying to get the goblins to see the humans as adults even though the goblin offspring would be considered a child at the same year age. Even the schooling could be an issue for the humans of the clan in comparison to the goblins of their family.

There were the Core Lessons that every child of the Nation needed to study and pass tests on in order to move on to the Greater Lessons. The Core Lessons were started at age 20 and ended at age 60. The Greater Lessons started at age 60 and would end at age 80. Then one could choose the path they wanted for their Journey Lessons. Though it was usually based on what one’s clan was well known for, occasionally a new path was chosen.

After that one could go on to become a Master. Only those with the Master title can have the highest positions within the Nation. This is because those who hold the Master title have devoted themselves beyond their own clan and to the greater interests of the Nation.

There have only ever been seven humans of the Nation to hold the title of Master in all of Goblin history.

Of course, there are ways for humans to learn amongst themselves while still within the Nation for most of their lives. Schools built within the Nation that specifically cater to the more rapid development of the human kin. Human students are then encouraged to go out into the world suppressed by outside humans and learn from them. Humans of the clans have returned to the Nation with understandings of art, language, mathematics, politics, sciences, and human based magics. This is always helpful to both their clan and the Nation. It is considered a great honor.

The feeling that I have always gotten from my goblin kin about this honor though, is one of polite condescension. As though a pat on the head for doing our very best to help, since we obviously are incapable of doing as much as our goblin kin. It has always bothered me. And it has always empowered me. Fueling me to study more and work harder than anyone else has in my whole clan.

Technically, one can take and pass the tests for the Core and Greater Lessons in order to start their Journey earlier. The absolute shame and dishonor that would fall upon such a foolhardy individual that requests the tests earlier and fails to pass is the only punishment for such a decision, but it keeps almost the entire Nation from ever trying. Perhaps one percent of the Nation in all of its history has tried to take their tests early. Less than one percent has ever passed, the names of them living on in memory for all of history.

I had always wanted to pass the tests early and move on to my Journey, but then I started to display accidental magic and my early plans changed. Instead I went to school with the other human kin while being tutored in the Core and Greater Lessons on my own time. When I went out into the human suppressed world to learn of magic in a country called Brazil, I studied the lessons there as well. Even as I apprenticed to a runes master, I studied the lessons of the Nation.

When I returned home in my thirties, I had made a significant name for myself in Latin America as well as Southeast Asia. They called me a cursebreaker. To them that is the understanding of what I do. To the Nation, a cursebreaker is a human that couldn’t possibly become a Master. I was determined to go beyond cursebreaking. I immediately applied to take the Core and Greater tests.

They laughed at me.

Those that didn’t laugh were instead full of concern.

Reminders of the shame that I would bring to the clan if I failed.

Pressures to see what I had done as good enough for what I was.

My determination won out and eventually they relented into allowing me a specially proctored test. I was under constant scrutiny. I had been searched physically and magically to ensure I was not cheating. The room was warded and spelled so that it would not be possible to cheat, but because I was me they went beyond that to be sure.

It took three days to have the results posted. The whole of the Nation knew by then that a human of the clans had presumed that they could pass tests that those older and supposedly more knowledgeable than them would not attempt in this manner.

I passed with shine.

Of the last two decades for the tests, my scores were the highest.

The name Natalia Rayner would be sung throughout the history of our halls.

The Heads of all the Journey Paths wished to speak with me, I could take my pick.

By passing I had proven that I wanted to do more for the Nation, wanted to devote myself to the good of the Nation. It was a massive feat for anyone of the Nation to do, human or goblin.

There were still those who would make subtle remarks, but I had made it clear. I wasn’t just a human, I was of the Nation.

My Journey Lessons were under the Head of Wardsmithing for the Nation. The use and manipulation of various protections were studied for a long time. Eventually, the humans from outside the Nation noticed that the goblins on various expeditions and ventures treated me differently. Often this had them trying to make me their go between.

Initially I had tried to explain the culture of the Nation to these human outsiders. I tried many different ways to explain how I was a daughter of the clans, a part of the Nation in a way that they couldn’t be because of the treaties. After many attempts, eventually I gave up in trying to explain the reality of the situation to them. They never seemed to listen. Even when I tried explaining that I was much like a half blood, someone of both worlds but distinctly magical. Honestly, that might have made it worse.

When I was finally at the end of my Journey, I began to prepare my Falchtuck. Every child of the Nation learns to fight with a sword. The first sword is the Falchtoc and it is given by one's parents to a child old enough and strong enough to wield it. One must learn to defend themselves, their family, their clan, and their Nation with the Falchtoc. When one is at the end of their Journey they must craft their own Falchtuck and fight the Chaa. This proves that they have earned a Mastery from their Journey Lessons. Not even all of the goblins of the Nation will craft the Falchtuck. Only about a third of the Nation will ever hold a Mastery in their subject. Though many positions within the Nation do not require more than the Greater Lessons, often there will be additional informal training for other jobs.

The Chaa is a beautiful retelling of the battles experienced early in the history of the Goblin Nation. One battled with others during the Chaa in established steps laid out by Masters long ago. There were practices allowed leading up to the true Chaa, but even then it was still a test of endurance and strength of devotion to the Nation.

My whole clan watched from the high circles as witness to the honor I brought them as I showed my devotion to helping the Nation move forward.

It was the most amazing moment in the whole of my life, surpassing the exhilaration that I had felt when my scores were posted. It was a heavy shining stone that settled into me, a proud moment for all of us, when I finally achieved my title of Master.

When I had gotten the request to look at unique unknown wards in Britain, I had been in Southwestern Asia since the 1960s. It was a place where the humans constantly liked to kill each other with ever increasing massive weaponry. The Nation had predicted that this infighting would likely become worse during the latter part of the century and wanted someone like me in place to make the biggest difference in the outcomes. The more the humans tried to kill each other the more they needed wards as well fitted as the ones which we could provide.

The humans there responded well to my olive complexion and my human nature, thinking that they were getting one over on the greedy and distasteful goblins. It was a sick thing to witness. Over and over again they saw my human skin and believed me to be one of them. They thought I was in on it with them, this derogatory mindset against goblins.

To be honest, it was starting to make me understand why so many of my human kin stayed in the Nation. Avoiding this sickness that affected the humans of the suppressed world.

For a goblin Master to call me back to Britain for this project meant that it would be interesting at the very least and it would give me a much needed break from these humans.

I had not expected to be thrust into an operation to undermine the control of one human over another. Even I was familiar with the work of Headmaster Dumbledore in regards to the International Confederation of Wizards. I didn’t really have an opinion on him before now, just an awareness of his existence.

After this?

I took a look around and rubbed at my aching neck.

My team had set up the reconstruction rooms that would simulate the house and its occupants of Little Whinging. Threads of magic showed through the illusion of the walls and the people to give us an idea of what the wards were and how it all connected. According to the woman managing the operation the wards were somehow connected to the family themselves. From our initial observations, however, these wards were only being powered by a single individual. There was obviously ties of magic showing up on the other three, but it would take time to figure out what was happening with them.

None of what I was seeing in the reconstruction made a lot of sense right away. Which meant that Master Clinkscale was absolutely right to call me into this project. Whatever was going on here was far from normal and that was extremely interesting.

Author’s Note

This was originally supposed to be a part of the next chapter Be Mine, but that chapter grew out of control and needed to be split somewhere.

The inspiration for John’s scene is drawn from a photo of Marilyn Monroe I once saw with a quote from Anne Greene, the wife of her personal photographer.

"I'll never forget the day Marilyn and I were walking around New York City, just having a stroll on a nice day. She loved New York because no one bothered her there like they did in Hollywood, she could put on her plain-jane clothes and no one would notice her. She loved that.

So as we we're [sic] walking down Broadway, she turns to me and says 'Do you want to see me become her?'

I didn't know what she meant but I just said 'Yes'- and then I saw it.

I don't know how to explain what she did because it was so very subtle, but she turned something on within herself that was almost like magic. And suddenly cars were slowing and people were turning their heads and stopping to stare. They were recognizing that this was Marilyn Monroe as if she pulled off a mask or something, even though a second ago nobody noticed her.

I had never seen anything like it before."

Chapter 12: Be Mine

Chapter Text

15 January 1985

Vernon Dursley hummed as he chose between two ties. It had been a very good weekend and he had already told everyone in the office about the prize his family had won. He decided on the darker brown today and made his way down to breakfast. Petunia was already on the phone with one of her lady friends from the garden club. She had told Vernon that the family was in desperate need of a new closet since they were to be featured in adverts that might be seen by the whole country. Vernon had whole heartedly agreed with her and she had already gotten started on making sure that the Dursley family would be more than presentable in their pictures with the help of the jealous ladies of the garden club.

Vernon himself was more interested in making sure that the photos they took would be of high enough quality for the travel agency to want to use for a good long time. He had looked into buying a professional style camera for the occasion. When he mentioned it to one of the other managers at Grunnings he had been sent off on a new mission. The new camera recorders that had just hit the market were professional enough for the smart hobbyist, but they were even more expensive than the new gaming system he’d bought to play with his son. But if it meant more pictures of his perfect family were used and therefore seen? Perhaps it was worth the investment.

The boy had made an acceptable meal for breakfast, but Vernon Dursley was thinking more on whether he should buy a new camera and a camera recorder than on how much marmalade he was layering onto his toast. As Petunia finished her call and encouraged their perfect son to eat something, though it did not seem to be going well for either of them, Vernon was still silent. His coworker had an in at one of the larger electronics company and if Vernon was willing to pay a king’s ransom he could have equipment that was just about to hit the market. It would be quite the coup for him socially just to own such equipment, but to be able to say he had used it for this picture or that video every time an advert was seen?

A small greedy smile crept along his face and his beady eyes nearly disappeared into the cheeks of his large beefy face when he enthusiastically took to the idea. He was definitely going to see to it this very day. Now, though, it was half past eight. He kissed his wife on the cheek, gave his son a pat on the head, and scolded the good for nothing who was at the sink cleaning dishes- as he should be. Wouldn’t do to let the boy get any ideas, no nonsense like that would happen in the perfectly normal Dursley house, thank you very much.

On his drive to work Mr Dursley tried to focus on the three orders of drills he was to organize over this week, but his mind kept wandering back to the prize his family had so deservedly won. Who better to have something like this than the Dursley family? They were, after all, the picture perfect British family. This situation wasn’t just a social coup for each of the Dursleys, it was also a marketing opportunity for Vernon Dursley. A chance to show the higher ups how well he could rub elbows. A month long holiday in America wasn’t something just anyone did, it wasn’t Majorca after all. Anyone could go to Spain, but this was something different. It could be a talking point for a large number of reasons. It could be part of his new sales pitches.

By the time Mr Dursley reached the offices of Grunnings and made his way to his desk on the sixth floor, he knew he would be moving up in the business without any doubt. This trip was exactly the launching pad he needed. He was so certain that his career would rocket up after the trip that he called up his coworker right away and agreed to buy both the professional camera and the camera recorder. His coworker said he would be able to get in touch with his contact this afternoon and by this evening Mr Dursley would have the best equipment available on the market.

Pleased with the start of his morning, he continued on with his day in much the same manner. Constantly thinking and talking about his upcoming American holiday at the much lauded Disney World. He did manage to get some of his work done. He yelled at two different people and made several important phone calls all before lunch. He was in a good mood when his coworker, who he decided to think of in more friendly terms, told him that his contact was available for lunch. Not at all worried about the work he had to finish, Mr Dursley agreed to get lunch with the two and discuss this amazing video equipment.

By the end of lunch, Vernon knew he had made a lasting impression on the two men. He might not be the videophile they were expecting, but he was earnest and sincere in his interest. They liked his reasoning for buying such high end equipment and congratulated him on his good fortune with hearty claps to the back. His coworker’s friend was in marketing and his firm’s clients were the ones with the video equipment. Apparently, they had been given several sets to use while deciding on their marketing scheme.

This man was genius enough to realize that a family man taking the equipment on holiday was the buyer persona they were looking for and would be able to produce the kind of realistic content their ads would need. Of course, he couldn’t just give Vernon this extremely expensive equipment so he could go off to America. Especially since Vernon had just spent most of lunch boasting about how this travel company was going to put the Dursley family in their adverts. To the man in the know that meant the contracts Vernon and his wife had signed probably gave the exclusive rights for all pictures of the holiday to the travel agency. But he was willing to sell the equipment to Vernon anyway, he would just have to pay the full price since his company wouldn’t be able to use any of the film. They shook on it, though Mr Dursley had nearly had a heart attack on hearing that the new price was double the original quote, and went back to their respective offices.

Back at his office Mr Dursley went about making a few calls regarding his own finances. He was certain that it would not take him overly long to make up the money spent on new outfits for his family and these new electronics. He did want to make sure that he didn’t run into any pitfalls though, before his commission for these new orders was in the bank. After that he focused with all his might on his work as he would definitely be cinching the belt for a while.

When he left the building it was a little later than five o’clock, he wanted to make sure he had finished up the paperwork for that order as soon as possible. He made it home in time for dinner where Petunia told him all about the different things she had organized for the trip. She would do the actual shopping tomorrow, but she had a good list of things that they would need for a month away in another country. He nodded along as he ate, still a bit focused on how big a bill this free trip was generating, when his wife nodded to a large package on the counter and said it had come for him this afternoon.

It was quite a bit after dinner by the time he had the chance to see what this package was all about. His wife was bringing in two cups of tea as he unwrapped the box with the news playing on the telly in the background. Dudley had taken quite a while for her to put to bed and they were both fairly tired after an exhausting day. In the package he found several glossy brochures and maps under a letter in a cream envelope.

“Well, what is it Vernon? Some sort of catalog?”

“No, Pet,” Mr Dursley replied as he read the letter, becoming increasingly concerned. “It’s from the travel agency. These are all the plans and things that have been paid for already. Er– Petunia, dear– you wouldn’t happen to remember the dates of the trip that Moore woman told us, would you?”

Mrs Dursley looked a bit pensieve at that, she’d told everyone who would listen that she was going on this marvelous trip, but she hadn’t even known when she was going. “I don’t seem to recall the exact dates. We could always call?”

“No– er– there’s no need to call. They have the itinerary all laid out here in this letter and then again in the brochures,” he held one up so that she could see the date.

“Surely, not,” said Mrs Dursley wide eyed and gasping.

“It does seem so–”

“But for this year? Perhaps it means for next year, though I do think I remember her saying it would be this year,” she said all in a rush, one hand gripping her tea cup more the other fluttering about as she spoke.

“It is definitely for this year, they have the full dates with the year on the itinerary.”

“How can they expect us to be ready for a month long holiday with only a few weeks notice?” Mrs Dursley said this in the same manner one might frown and shoo at a rather unpleasant bug that had gotten too close. “It’s unacceptable. There is no way that we will be ready in time. You will simply have to call them and inform them that we will take the trip later in the year. We were the winners after all they can’t expect this of us.”

“Of course, Petunia,” he soothed. “I’ll call this number in the morning to see how late we can shift the trip out. You just go about the shopping tomorrow and we will be more than prepared for our adventure.”

17 January 1985

I’m never sure if I like the quiet.

Sometimes the quiet means that I can be alone for a while.

But I’m not really sure if I like that either. Being alone.

It’s harder to tell in the quiet and the alone what will happen next.

I definitely like it better when I can tell what will happen next. What I’m supposed to do next. If I know, then I can do it or do it better than I did it last time. Make the bacon crispier. Fold the laundry straighter. Dust the higher places without falling so much.

But in the quiet– In the quiet I’m not sure what to do.

It’s like all my muscles get tighter and tighter just waiting for them to bang on the door or to yell at me to do something. Just waiting.

If it’s quiet and alone, but all you can think about is all the things that could happen next– It’s not so nice.

Mrs Figg promised me my own room at her place when we fix things with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. A real bedroom, like Dudley has. I’m not sure what I would do with all that space. Thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. But not in the way it does when I’m hungry.

It’s been forever since I’ve seen Mrs Figg. She sent her cat to see me though. He had a special jacket sewed on him with a pocket. Inside the pocket was the most wonderful thing ever.

A magic bag!

I had to put it in the band of my trousers to keep anyone from seeing it though. The trousers I was wearing were only loaned to me because Dudley had taken scissors to all the pockets. Once I was shut in my cupboard on Wednesday night I read Mrs Figg’s note. She said she put all kinds of things in the magic bag and that she would send Mr Tibbles, that’s the cat, back and switch out one magic bag for a different one when it started to get empty.

I didn’t know the word “orb” but I think it must mean ball. I like the glow ball, it’s not the same as turning on the bulb. It doesn’t get hot or make that buzzing sound, and Uncle Vernon can’t get upset at wasting electricity on me when I use it because it’s my magic that makes it glow. At least that’s what Mrs Figg’s note says. I think it looks like a tiny moon. I’ve had it for about a week now and I think it’s the best. When I’m sure everyone is asleep I take it out and push just a little and it starts to glow. It’s nice.

If I can’t sleep, I’ve been coloring in the books from the magic bag by the light of my tiny moon. It feels super magical!

That’s what I’m doing tonight. Mrs Figg got me color pencils to fill in the pictures in the books. This one is different gardens and cottages with little fairies. I’m using lots of blue colors.

I can’t sleep cause of the fighting Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia did. They did it all evening. I’m worried the plan won’t work cause now they don’t want to go on the trip. They’re angry that it’s so soon. They hate that they are stuck with me. But I thought I wasn’t going…

Mrs Figg says the trip is a trick. That when they are gone we can do all kinds of things. But if they don’t go, what will happen?

I remember on Saturday when she came to the house as the pretend lady to trick them into signing things so they would go away. I was in my cupboard all day. If I didn’t have my magic bag I would have been very hungry. I tried to be as quiet as possible and pretend I didn’t exist just like Uncle Vernon tells me to when other people come over. I had to bite my fingers so that even my breathing wouldn’t be too loud. Uncle Vernon says he’s never known anyone to breathe as loud as me.

I didn’t think my muscles could get tighter than they did that day, but today was like that too.

In other ways it had been pretty nice since then though. I had books and coloring and snacks. I even met up with Mr Tibbles a couple of times.

After I read the history book Mrs Figg gave me this adventure book about a wizard kid in America! It was so awesome, I read it real fast. I hope I get another book like that with the next bag.

Maybe I should write a note to Mrs Figg and tell her there’s a problem with the plan?

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll finish coloring this picture and write on it that the Dursleys don’t want to take the trip. Mrs Figg will know what to do about it.

18 January 1985

The week had started off on such a grand note, Petunia Dursley recalled as she sighed over her morning tea. This past Saturday the Dursley family had won an incredible and exclusive trip to America to stay at the Disney World resort. Vernon and Petunia had immediately gone about informing the whole of Little Whinging about the win the very next day. She had spent all of that Monday discussing with the other neighborhood ladies what one should pack for such a long and grand holiday. Why, none of them had even been to America before and surely couldn’t remember anyone going to a wonderful place like Disney World either.

Petunia had taken to organizing for this trip like she imagined she would if set to host for a gala that might be deserving of her attentions. She was so immersed in the discussions of her wonderful family holiday and the purchases that would need to be made that she didn’t realize she had no idea when they would be leaving. In fact it wasn’t until Tuesday, long after they had been celebrated over and had their photoshoot done, that the travel agency sent documents detailing the dates.

The brochures that the Moore woman had left were wonderful in describing the exclusive and luxury treatment that their family would enjoy on their month long getaway, but they didn’t say which month. The box that Vernon had opened the other day, however, had brochures with dates and times on them as well as a detailed itinerary. There were fine dinners with dancing and breakfasts set up to be eaten with cartoon characters. There were animals to see and pictures that could be taken. The travel agency had even included an autograph book for her Dudders. It truly was a spectacular holiday, and all of it would be free.

She and Vernon had argued since he had spoken with the woman over the phone about the dates of the trip. He had called the very next morning, Wednesday, after opening that box. How on earth could one expect to be ready for such a long holiday in a foreign country with such little notice? It was the height of absurdity. Vernon said that not only would the travel agency not change the dates, but since they had already paid for the trip the Dursleys would be financially responsible for the whole thing if they did not go. After all, they said, the whole point of a travel agency giving away such a trip was for the marketing the family would do by going on the trip.

Instead of shopping while walking on clouds as she ought, Petunia Dursley had spent Wednesday trying to work some way around going on an exclusive trip. Or at least putting it off until later. The clothing they needed would be more what one might wear for summer here, surely in Florida it would be quite a bit hotter than they were accustomed to handling in February. How was she to find such out of season clothing in the first place?

They had called the agency back later, of course, after she and Vernon had argued more. The agency said that the Dursleys had signed up for the contest knowing the rules and then they had signed multiple contracts in front of a notary agreeing to the rules once more. They would either pay for the trip and not go, or they would go on the trip for free. That was the end of it.

Petunia had spent all of yesterday arguing with her husband as well. He had returned from the office with two large cases and an enormous smile. Vernon had purchased a camera of the highest quality to take professional photos while they were abroad. She could admit that it was probably worth the purchase, he had sound logic for it. If they were going to be pressed into this holiday so soon and wanted the photos they took to be included in the travel agency’s adverts then they would need good quality photos which meant a good quality camera.

It was the other purchase that she thought a bit silly. This camcorder might be the next big thing, but surely the agency wouldn’t want to use home video footage for their television ads. When her husband told her how much it had cost, it didn’t really matter to her that the camcorder was barely even out on the market yet. What a foolish thing to buy! Why they could nearly pay for a holiday of their own for such a price!!

She flipped through another glossy magazine showcasing the easy ways to get to and from the different parts of the resort and their accommodations. It was a truly wonderful place. They even had a babysitting service within the hotel and a little daycare in a another facility for when the parents needed some time to themselves. Perhaps when Dudley is a little older they can return so he can take advantage of these horseback trips for children. Her little Dudders would look so handsome on a horse.

The worst of it wasn’t even that they would have to find and buy so many new outfits so soon. No it was that they would have to find a way to deal with that boy for such a long period of time with such short notice. They had completely forgotten about the trouble he caused in their euphoria. Who would want to deal with the little pest for so long? It’s not like they could trust the boy to stay in the house for a whole month and not destroy everything. Perhaps if they had more time or it was a more convenient season they would find a reforming camp somewhere, someplace where bad children went to be trained into behaving like the real, proper sort of people that the Dursleys were.

There was a knock on the door. It might be one of the ladies with an idea of how to find new swim shorts in January for her husband. Petunia carefully set down her tea and straightened out her dress before answering the front door.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Dursley,” came the irritating voice of a foul smelling woman. Though usually the old woman smelled of cabbage, today she smelled heavily of perfumes. Possibly she had started drinking and was using what must be six different perfumes to cover the reek of alcohol. Petunia Dursley nodded imperiously at her while trying not to breathe. “I do hope I’ve not come at a bad time. I know you must be hard at work planning that trip the whole neighborhood is talking about. Congratulations dear. But I was wondering about– about the company you hired to refit your kitchen?”

That came as a surprise to Petunia, not that everyone knew that she had garnered such a wonderful prize for her family or even that she and Vernon had refit their kitchen. It was odd that this little old widow would have the funds available to do such a thing to her own home. The Dursley family had taken quite a great deal of pride in refitting their kitchen just after Dudley had been born. The fixtures and appliances were much bigger and of a much higher quality than anything found elsewhere in Little Whinging even three years later. The family had hosted a number of other couples and young families to put their kitchen on display. Everyone should know how well appointed the Dursley house was and by that know how well off the Dursleys were. It was quite the investment.

Since Petunia hadn’t deigned to say anything to the old woman other than to raise an inquiring brow she continued, “I’ve had one out to estimate a new flooring in mine and it’s just such a high amount. Just the cost of labor to tear out the old floor is ridiculous. If I was a mite younger I would do it myself.”

She sniffed at the woman, but then Petunia nearly gagged at the stench of her. Of course she couldn’t afford it even if it was just flooring. To think that she could cut the cost of the labor by tearing out the floor herself, even a decade younger this woman would blow over with a strong wind.

But suddenly Petunia had an idea. It was a wonderful idea. It was an idea that would solve all her problems. An idea that would see her family enjoying sunsets on sandy beaches.

She might have thought that the smile she was giving Mrs Figg was a kind one. To anyone else the smile on Petunia Dursley’s face, as she thought of pawning her nephew off on an old widow so that he could spend a month doing hard labor while she sipped champagne in a silk dress without a care in the world, would not have been out of place on a movie villain.

18 January 1985

After securing Harry from Petunia, I went in to Gringotts for a followup meeting with the head wardsmith and Master Clinkscale. Though we had spoken during the debriefing after we had finished with swarming the Dursley house, there was much that had needed put together and gone over. The debriefing had made quite the impression on me. The head wardsmith was an older witch named Natalia Rayner. She fascinated me with her incredible ability. She must fascinate that goblins as well to make a witch the head wardsmith instead of a goblin.

After the swarm she was initially upset that we hadn’t let her near the staircase that her teams had determined was where the greatest point of magic was coming from when we had them at the Dursley’s home. Then she was upset that it had been explained to her only during the debriefing, that the child savior of wizarding Britain was locked in the cupboard under the stairs and that was why the space could not be more thoroughly examined. When she had stated that the warding was also pinpointed under the stairs I had to explain to her that the only thing significantly magical in that cupboard was a small, repeatedly abused boy that we were working on saving. That caused an even greater upset. If the child was the only thing under the stairs and the wards were maintained by the magic under the stairs, then that meant that the child was the one sustaining the wards.

When Master Clinkscale and I had sat down with Wardsmith Rayner for the follow up I wasn’t expecting good news. I didn’t think that there could be any good news. Maybe with the exception that we could get around whatever Albus had done, that might count as good news. She laid out for both of us everything that they knew from their investigation and I was shocked.

“It should be obvious that the wards in place are not ordinary wards,” Rayner started. “It would not be entirely surprising for wards on such a celebrated child to be incredibly strong or forceful or even very complicated. However,” she sighed, “the wards are so much more and things are so much worse than any we could have imagined for this situation.”

“I hope that you will forgive my impertinence, Wardsmith Rayner, but I have a background in potions and magizoology not warding or protective magics.”

“Of course. Let’s start with the easy and obvious questions then work our way into the more complicated and, honestly, insane things that are going on here.”

It was never reassuring to have a master of anything think that something within their own field should be labeled as insane, it filled me with dread.

“We spoke about how Chief Warlock Dumbledore is responsible for what is happening with the scion Potter at the debriefing. My team can confirm that Albus Dumbledore did not have anything to do with implementing the protections. You must understand first that there are many different types of wards and under each heading of a ward can be one or a thousand different types of protections.” She looked over to me and smiled kindly while gesturing between the two of us.

“You and I have spent time in the muggle world Madam Figg. Think of it like the complexity of a television. There are many different types of televisions. Some have better picture, some are larger, some come with additional features, perhaps some just look nicer with your furniture. But even though they all look very different they are all televisions. There are many different types of wards, all have protections as a part of them. Those protections might guard better against one specific thing or person, they might cover a larger area, they might tell you what is going on while they guard, perhaps they are just what works best with what you have available. Do you understand?”

“I believe that I have the general idea.” And I did, though I was comparing it more to computers. Wards were different programs that operated under different parameters and rules. That made complete sense, but it probably wasn’t something I should share with the fiercely intelligent wardsmith. It would be too much knowledge that I shouldn’t have.

“Good. Now there are many, many protections that we were able to discern from our findings in Little Whinging. We would need an even more thorough look to be able to tell if it is one incredibly complex ward scheme, or if it is multiple wards overlaid on each other. None of these could have possibly been created by Albus Dumbledore as they must be created by a close magical blood relation to the person that is being protected. The person in such cases is often the parent of the child being protected. Our current theory has it at ninety percent Lily Potter alone in the creation and powering of the wards and six percent with both of them creating and powering the wards.”

“What about the other percent?”

“It gives us some range of error in our calculations. While we are certain that he didn’t create or power them we can tell that Albus Dumbledore, or someone extremely powerful who just happened to be in the right place at the right time with a motive,” she gave us both pointed looks and we returned them whole heartedly, “manipulated the wards just after they were created. Almost every ward scheme in existence can be dated like tree rings to tell a story. Not even a week had passed, again some room for error, before the wards had been manipulated.”

This was both something I had expected to hear and found puzzling. Albus Dumbledore in the books had told Harry that he had cast a charm on him that would help protect him as long as he stayed at his aunt’s house, no matter how begrudgingly she took him in. He had also said that it was Lily’s death that had created the protections against Voldemort. It hadn’t seemed so incongruent before, but now I was questioning it more. Why manipulate something that was already in place and working? What charm would he need to add, that Petunia would need to seal, that wasn’t already in the protections?

“The wards were sacrificial in nature, which is extremely illegal these days as they require a human sacrifice. These wards appear to be a unique, personal protection that was blood bound. These types of sacrificial blood wards are usually based on home. Though home is not quite the right term. It doesn’t mean a physical house or even the place where one lives. It’s more like the corny phrase, ‘Home is where the heart is’ as it draws off the magical energies of love and family. Anyone that would fall under these tenets would be able to provide viable magical energy to the wards and strengthen them. Except that scion Potter was in a place where he did not have love or family and the only one with ambient magical energy was him.”

“Sorry, um, ambient magical energy? I’m not sure I know that term.”

“It is perhaps a goblin way of thinking, Madam Figg,” came Master Clinkscale’s rough voice. I turned from the older witch to the Manager of Estates and he obliged with an explanation. “There are many types of magic, but two main ones that are important to know as from them all others branch. The first of these is called wild magic, it used to be that some places were springs of such magic, but most of those have long since run dry. Wild magic can be created by races like goblins, dwarves, elves, centaurs, merpeople, etc as well as born by a few plants and places. We believe that all races once helped in the creation of wild magic and that even the races that still make such magic once made it in far greater amounts.

“The second type of magic is that of ambient magic. Where wild magic is created or born, ambient magic is given off. Almost all life has ambient magic, some just give off more ambient magic than others. The goblins believe ambient magic is made when wild magic is converted or used. If a goblin were to use magic to craft something they would pull on wild magic from around them, craft with elemental magic, and the act would give off ambient magic. If a wizard were to call on magic they would call from within and use the ambient magic they have already created from the wild magics they naturally absorb and store. Then use their wand magic to create. As long as they are not over using their wand magic, they will produce enough to constantly give off ambient magics. It is for this reason my people have an interest in wand magics.”

“Exactly,” Rayner said nodding along. “There are some types of wards that can convert wild magics into stable, usable magic but they are fairly uncommon. Think of the magic as the energy to power the television. If you’re trying to force the wrong amount of voltage through then you are going to fry it. The original form of these wards would have still worked to a certain extent as the sacrifice of a loving mother would have the power to protect her child all by itself for a very long time. Maybe a decade without the need for further magics to become involved. Almost like an internal battery to power it. A great number of stable wards work like that, a large power supply is given initially and then needs to be topped up when that runs down.

“The manipulations added afterward, however, were straining the power that love had generated. The manipulations forced the protections to cover any being that was a blood relation within a certain area no matter what feelings were involved. Since the wards needed magical energies to survive, once it began to become depleted it would have searched for a source of magic that was within its rules to pull from. This is where things started to get out of hand.”

I think I must have looked a bit dazed at this point since Master Clinkscale poured us all some more tea and I took the moment to breathe. This was all new information. It hadn’t been read about in books or watched on screens in the future life. It hadn’t even been known by the woman who had grown up in this world with constant access to magical places. It fit in with my understandings of squibs though, as some of us could still perform fairly high tasks like the brewing of potions. If someone’s magic was active enough to convert natural magical energy, wild magic, into ambient energy then they would most likely be able to create potions or interact with the magical world in much the way that I could. After a few minutes, and a few sips, the wardsmith picked the conversation back up.

“For scion Potter there was only one blood relation within the assigned area and he was also the only one to care about the initially warded individual. Just himself. The problem with pulling from him, though, is that he would have been too weak and he would also have been too young. According to our graphs this would have all started within the first year he was at the Little Whinging residence. To pull magics from him would have hurt him instead of protecting him, violating the basic tenets built into the ward. What the ward did, and we honestly aren’t even sure how yet, was pull in magic from the area around scion Potter.”

The wardsmith brought out sheafs of parchment with colored graphs, sparkling lines moving between the pieces of diagrams. Master Clinkscale and I looked over the results of the teams' research, but it was far too advanced for me to truly understand.

“From what we were able to decipher the wards began slowly, and then more steadily, siphoning in ambient and wild magics in the area. Crafting him into some sort of magical magnet that would encourage wild magics to come to him. As a magical being he could convert wild magic into the ambient magic which was needed to power the protections. Given the low level of ambient magic in Little Whinging there couldn’t have been very much for it to feed off of that, so we believe it started to pull wild magic towards him wherever he went even while outside the physical house and away from the two blood relations that are tangled into the manipulations.”

If that were true it would better explain the odd magical plant or pest that had popped up over the years. Most magical plants could only grow at all if they were around magical places and magical pests were usually only attracted to magical homes. I remember thinking that the cats would help keep the pests down when I saw them, but not thinking much else about them.

“Drawing in that magic towards the only one with both the blood and the magical ability to feed them, they made scion Potter into a filtering system. Feeding him wild magic, giving him an excess of magic, and then harvesting the ambient magic or the magic that would give strength to the blood tuned wards. This means that he has been just saturated in magical energy having spent years marinating in wild magics like no one does these days. I believe that the last well known individual to do such a thing, and actually achieve it, was Merlin. It’s no small matter to draw wild magics in at such a high rate and convert them to ambient magics at the same time.”

It was a good explanation for how quickly he healed from his abuses, how his starvation never killed him, perhaps even an explanation for how quick and clever he was. I remember the stories of Merlin doing that, his meditations within magic. Supposedly he fasted for a year and drew strength and nutrients directly from magic. After that year he was even more magically powerful and was said to have gained great knowledge without having access to a single scroll.

“If the wards are on Harry and are only drawing in all this wild magic so that they can protect him, what would happen should he go to a place that has a great deal of ambient magic? Hogwarts is known to be a place heavy in enough magics that there are several score house elves that live there.”

The relief and relaxation that Wardsmith Rayner showed to my question was both palpable and extremely worrying.

“The massive amounts of ambient magic at the school would be more than enough to feed the wards and it would stop doing this to him. It might even be enough to last through the summer months without resuming its previous activities. Though the individuals that his wards were also protecting would need him to stay nearby for a time so that they could benefit from the manipulations. Unlike him, the protections on the two Dursley blood relations would fade without proximal contact. Enough time away would cause the manipulations that had been placed on top of the original wards to break.”

And there was that worry. Judging by their confused looks to my fearful expression they didn’t understand, though at this point they should realize Dumbledore would have thought of this as well.

What this means is that Harry would have been sent back every summer to the Dursleys to recharge the ward magics on the Dursleys, not on him. It also means that once he started Hogwarts the ward would no longer marinate him in wild magic and whatever assistance that was giving him would end as soon as he passed the barrier to get to the Express. The main parts of the protection wouldn’t leave him, but it would never be as powerful as it was while they fed him wild magic.

“You do realize, of course,” I said in a shaky voice, “that he intends for Harry to stay at the Dursley house every summer.”

“That may have been, Madam Figg, but once Mr Potter was back in the magical world proper it would have been obvious that something was amiss with him.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” cut in Wardsmith Rayner with a sharpness that pulled our attention to her. She wasn’t answering Master Clinkscale, but rather looking at me with a positively terrifying smile. “He was going to send him back and he was going to make sure that it happened no matter what. He would have charmed or brushed off anyone with any concerns, because he definitely wanted scion Potter at the Dursley house. This is the part that I mentioned being so much worse than we had imagined.”

She took out an envelope from a folder and spread out its contents between us. I recognized the handwriting. It was a letter to Petunia from Albus. I knew from the debriefing that the teams had found a small box tucked away in the attic with several items that had traces of magic or were magical in nature. They seemed to be things belonging to Lily Potter. Things like pictures, books, a small box with runes set in it. There was also a small blanket and a letter.

The letter was worse than I imagined it being. Worse than anything I had read in fanfiction over the years. It was a masterful manipulation of fear and greed. He told Petunia that Lily and James had died saving the world, but that there was great evil still out there. Little Harry would be in danger and would need to live a life away from the magical world. I am certain that telling someone her only remaining family member, no matter how estranged, has been violently murdered in a letter where you backhand them an insult about not being magical is absolutely awful.

And then it got worse.

He basically told her that she would only be safe from magical people if she took Harry in and allowed him to call her home his own. That it would “seal the charm” to keep them away from her own family. There was quite a lot in there about how she wasn’t magical or interesting enough on her own, but that what the Potters had done was absolutely the pinnacle of magnificence and so there would be factions that would seek her out to harm her and her family. It ended with saying she would only have to allow Harry to call her home his own until he reached seventeen and then he could make his own way into the magical world without her.

Wow Albus, way to press every button there is on Petunia. Just masterful.

The letter, for us, confirmed that it was Albus Dumbledore that did the manipulation in the protective magics that had been fueled by Lily Potter’s sacrifice for her son. It also put to rest all of the bullsh*t that I had been worrying about in regards to Harry needing to believe in Privet Drive being home in order to continue his protection. The protections for Harry would continue wherever he went. Either they would be fed by ambient energy in a magical environment or they would pull in wild magic to continue on in a muggle environment. Though, from my understanding of what the wardsmith had said, a home with a family that loved him and could produce ambient magical energy would power the wards best. The protections under the manipulations were for the Dursleys and only they required Harry to be in that house.

Albus had done all this to manipulate Petunia, not to protect an innocent child. Petunia and her husband could have risen above the awful remarks and manipulations, she could have seen her sister’s son in need of a loving family and then loved him. Instead she went the complete opposite way and was horribly abusive, to the point where Harry should have died several times by now but had likely been saved by magic. It was ironic that Harry was saved from the worst of her abuses by his overactive wards saturating him in wild magic that had initially been created by his loving mother.

The manipulation of the wards and how they had affected Harry answered a number of questions that I had been asking myself. I was still worried about the horcrux and what it might be doing to Harry, but the idea of him taking in wild magics as a toddler and turning it into enough of an excess of ambient magic to feed a ward for years had calmed me. No one had really done that sort of thing since Merlin, no one really understood what happened with that type of exposure. Though the goblins and Wardsmith Rayner used different wording for such a deep meditative ritual. It was interesting to think of such an ancient rite in these terms. Rather like photosynthesis, pulling in sunlight to convert energy and breathing out oxygen into the atmosphere. If it would also stop at the same time that he went to Hogwarts, then perhaps that’s all it was.

“I understand exactly where you are coming from Madam Figg. It is awful that he would do that to scion Potter. But we aren’t going to allow such a thing to happen, so, for me, it is a nonissue. Instead, let’s look at the positives. If we cannot find a way to disconnect the manipulations that the Chief Warlock has done, we can still find a place heavy in ambient magic for you to raise scion Potter in without continuing this wild magic saturation. Think of it like needing to feed a magical plant instead of a ward if that helps you. A devil's snare would grow big and hearty near wild magic, but it would do just as well with ambient magic given off by hundreds of wizards and witches living in the same town. We won’t need to completely remove the protections in order to help him with the overreactions of the ward.”

I bristled a bit, but such was my reality that I would never have enough ambient magic to help Harry even if the wards did consider me a loving home. It was too dangerous to move him to a highly populated wizarding area even if I could maneuver around an all magical house. The plans Master Clinkscale and I had worked on, however, would still work with this new information. Getting rid of the Dursleys would lower the needs of the wards and prevent further saturation.

“I am glad that there are other ways to stop what may be a harmful magical saturation, as you called it, but I don’t think you have taken Albus into account here. My biggest worry is him, not the wards which don’t seem to be doing anything wrong per se. Albus has a tendency to send various random individuals to check up on the situation. Occasionally they will follow Petunia into a store, casually walk down the street. Taking Harry to another area is very likely something that would have to wait years to do. Master Clinkscale and I do have a potential plan to remove the Dursley variable from Little Whinging, hopefully, without letting on what is happening. Do the manipulations to the wards prevent the separation? If we move them instead would there be issues for Harry?”

The witch sighed at this and made a motion with her hand that implied a maybe. “Master Clinkscale informed me of the hopeful removal of them from their own living space. It is unlikely to cause a problem, or rather it’s unlikely to cause a major problem for either side of the manipulation. But I need to examine the child more thoroughly. And not just for the parts that the Chief Warlock manipulated. I desperately want to examine his scar.”

“His scar?” I said leaning back in my chair, feeling a bit whiplashed. I had wanted his scar to be examined, of course, but somehow I found myself in a panic that someone who had not even seen him yet would want a closer examination of it. I had hoped to look properly surprised and confused when the healers found something during his initial examination. I was desperately underprepared for someone else wanting to inspect it so soon. I took in a breath but didn’t get a chance to say anything before the witch cut back in.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think that the scar has its own place in these protections. Everyone knows that the scar is shaped much like a lightning bolt right?”

“Yes and everyone knows that the Boy Who Lived is happily training with Albus Dumbledore in a far off castle with a pet dragon.” I glared at her a bit and she had the sense to flinch at what she had said. Really, could she be less sensitive to what the child was going through?

“True, I apologize. It’s just that there are a few runes that could match that description. The wards that are possibly in play here are things that have not been used by wixen for generations in Britain. And I am fairly certain that the Potters made some modifications to it in order to protect their only child. If his scar is actually a rune that was part of the original ward scheme when the protections were cast and powered, it would be very important to know.”

“Important to help him? Or to satisfy your own curiosity?”

Our tempers were both flaring. She was highly lauded in her field, but the kind of hunger to know Harry that was obvious in her eyes and mannerisms was distasteful to me. Harry would be exposed to all kinds of people who would want to use him for various reasons. I didn’t want being someone’s pet project to be one of those reasons. Especially if she wants to study the scar so closely. While I want that thing out of Harry’s head, leaving him to Wardsmith Rayner might be worse than leaving it alone.

“Young Mr Potter is already scheduled for a thorough health check Madam Figg,” Master Clinkscale said calmly, glancing between us. “You were the one that very rightly pointed out that Mr Potter was the source of the wards, Master Rayner is following up on that as well as what it may mean for his health. Master Wardsmith Rayner is not familiar with her wards being living people, however, especially not children,” he nodded to Rayner and narrowed his eyes at her a bit. “It is in the best interest of the child that we understand the depths of the protections on him and as much about how they work as possible.”

The rebuke to her overexcitement was clear to both of us and Rayner appeared upset by it. But still… “Excusing her for forgetting that Harry is just a child is not enough. I don’t want her to ever be alone in the room with him at all. I want to meet the healers that will be treating him before I leave today. And no tests will be done on him unless I approve them beforehand.”

“I agree with your provisions and, given that we have time before Mr Potter’s appointment, Master Wardsmith Rayner will be learning from the healers how to help a child during such examinations. No doubt Mr Potter will be anxious about such an event.”

“Good. I also think that we should stick to the original plan. It is good to know that there are ways around the magical manipulations you found in the wards,” I acquiesced with a nod in the witch’s direction. “But the biggest worry right now is that any information might make it’s way back to Albus. If the manipulation does fall will Albus be notified? Is there anyway to tell?”

“There is a way to know if a ward or enchantment has failed,” the wardsmith answered, “but there doesn’t seem to be anything built into the ward or the manipulation itself to give such a notification. There are tests that can be done to verify that if you would approve them.”

“Fine, write it all down and send it to me through Master Clinkscale.”

25 January 1985

If it hadn’t happened to me I might not have believed it myself. When I first started planning to get Harry away from the Dursleys I had thought it would need to be extremely gradual. I had a half dozen plans and ideas for pulling him away from them in bits and pieces. Then my plans kept changing, new things kept happening. Suddenly it all fell into place.

It’s hard to believe that I was only a month old.

Born on Christmas day as a blending of Willow Harrison and Arabella Figg, the wild ride made it difficult to keep track of how long it had been. But only a month? So much changed in such a short period of time for both myself and Harry.

We now had signed and notarized contracts for Harry that list me as his sole decision making guardian. Among other things. The goblins took the contract that the muggle solicitor had written up and tweaked it ever so slightly to fit with other laws and plans. Those changes would be very helpful to do more interesting things even later on. For now it meant that I could start looking for day schools that could match his intelligence. I could legally take him across borders without worry. He was officially my responsibility in a way that he had not been to the old Arabella Figg. He was mine in a way that she would never have thought to try.

Being responsible for Harry Potter meant more than just getting him to school and ensuring he had a good environment to grow up in, it also meant making sure that the bad elements in magical society would be unable to harm him. That meant plans against powerful people needed to be made and carried out. The goblins and I were in agreement that the longer we could do this without anyone in the magical world finding out the better it would work. We were also in agreement that the faster I got him away from the Dursleys the easier it would be to begin the next stages of the many plans we were readying.

When I had gone to see Petunia after the travel brochures arrived, I had expected to find her irritated and perhaps frantic. That was all a part of the plan. What was not part of the plan was that the deeper negative energies between Petunia and Vernon Dursley would cause such anxiety with Harry. I honestly hadn’t thought how this part of the plan would affect him. I had considered that he would have to stay with them while the plan was in motion. I had even tried to ensure he was eating and feeling better by giving him the extendable pouch, but the ratcheting up of emotions that we were purposefully ensuring with the Dursleys was not something where any of us had taken Harry into account.

I had gotten a message back with Mr Tibbles. It was a coloring page from one of his new books. He had colored in a little fairy garden with blues and purples, drawn a little cat in front of the flowers, and written a message on the back of it to me. He was worried that the plan wasn’t working because of the way the Dursleys were behaving. They were yelling, apparently, and hating him even more than usual. Could she do something to make sure the plan would work?

I saw Harry as I shuffled my way up the walk of number 4 Privet Drive on Friday morning. I had just gotten his note, but the plan had always been for me to meet with Petunia Dursley after a few days of anger and worry had worked her over for me. Just as we had gotten them to sign whatever we wanted by making everything quick and spectacular, by making everything feel angry and anxiety inducing we were pushing them to do what we wanted. I had practically bathed in every perfume I could find in the house. I realized that I no longer smelled funny because of proper hygiene and the lack of those cabbage smelling couch covers. This actually worked against the image that I wanted to present as an old lady. I believed that smelling like an overzealous teenage boy that had raided his mother’s perfume collection would make an impression.

It certainly worked. Petunia would not have wanted to invite me in, but was even ruder about it because of the way I smelled. She laid out the whole plan for me taking Harry on for the month of February while they were away on their happy family holiday in America. It was obviously her brilliant idea for Harry to come and help me with my floor for the month. I had asked, quite seriously, if it would be alright for Harry to come over a few days earlier. I nearly had that guest room cleared out finally. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was no bed, would it?

She had looked positively gleeful at her charge slaving away, without a bed to sleep in, while she was on a holiday. It was sickening and damning. There was never going to be anything that could reform Petunia. She enjoyed doing this to Harry. She wanted him to hurt and for him to be left out. To have a miserable life and feel absolutely unwanted and unloved. I had read in fanfiction over the years that maybe it was just Vernon. Maybe Vernon abused her too. Or maybe it was the horcrux that made them awful people.

I always thought people needed to read the books again.

Women don’t try to hit children with frying pans because they are being abused by their spouses. They get quiet, sure. They don’t help, sure. But to become violently abusive in their own right? No. Of course, there were many ways to abuse children and Petunia did that too. Then, in the first pages of the first chapter of the first book Vernon Dursley shows himself to be a bully who enjoys his own power. He is in a good mood at the office because he got to shout at people. Nice people don’t get put into good moods because they yelled at people.

This whole operation was just exposing Vernon and Petunia as the awful people that they had been all along. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t ensure they were taken care of by the justice system properly. Not that the justice system was ever terribly good about these things. The goblins and I had a fairly good plan, and several backup plans, in place to take care of them. To get justice after what evil they had wrought. It would just take patience and cleverness.

Harry moved into his room in my house on Wisteria Walk days before the Dursleys left for America. With the house being remodeled soon there wasn’t any permanent furniture yet, but I had gotten a wizard camping bed. It could fold up to the size of a pocket book and was incredibly comfortable. I had also put some new clothes in there for him to wear, we would get more for him another time. Then I had put piles of books and toys in the room. I knew we would change things up, but I wanted to make sure Harry understood that this was a safe space for him with things in it that were bought just for him.

We had spent some time in the morning just talking about how this room would change, but that he would have his own room in this house whenever he wanted. That we could go and get anything he wanted to put in it to make it more his own. He looked so fragile. It must be so difficult for someone used to having anything good taken from them to believe that they could truly have anything good. I had left him up there for a while to let him acclimate, but over lunch we discussed the next part in the Disney plan.

“Harry, I want you to know that if you aren’t comfortable with any part of this plan that you can speak to me about it. There are many, many ways to get this done. It doesn’t have to be done a certain way if you don’t want it done that way.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. I gave him a shrewd look. He probably didn’t care as long as he didn’t have to deal with the Dursleys anymore, but I wanted to make sure he talked to me if he felt that I was ever going too far. Actually, I wanted him to talk to me about anything he was worried about.

“Right, so the next big part of the plan will happen when the Dursleys leave. We want to make sure that your aunt has a letter written by you in her bag when she goes to America. This letter needs to say that your parents’ friends have come to take you away from her.”

When we had set the Dursleys up initially the goblin teams had multiple missions laid out for them. Chief among those missions was to uncover anything with any trace of magics on it, especially if it was Dumbledore’s magic. Very specifically, Clinkscale and I had asked them to look for the letter that Dumbledore had written and left with Harry when he was abandoned to the Dursleys.

What this letter meant for us was that Albus had legally abandoned the child to people whom he knew were abusive with the manipulation of Lily’s dying sacrifice as both stick and carrot for Petunia. In the follow up meetings since then the wardsmiths had declared they were fairly certain that the the manipulations of the wards could be disconnected if they had access to Harry without needing to wait for a long period of time spent away from the Dursleys. These manipulations were turning Harry into a magnet for wild magic in order to feed the protections.

What we wanted to be sure of though was that Albus did not become aware when the disconnection happened. There are apparently what amounts to small monitoring devices for wards and protections. The device would need to be created with something like Harry’s blood or hair to work best as these would carry his magical signature, or ambient magic as they called it, and ensure that it would last longer. It wouldn’t be until after the information from Harry’s exam had been gone over with a fine tooth comb that we would know for certain if there was or wasn’t a monitor linked to them. The wards as they were would probably break naturally once Harry reached magical maturity at seventeen. Though the usual way to break something early that was tied to a sacrificial protection like this was through mutual agreement. Both Harry and Petunia would have to agree that her home was no longer his home. If one of them didn’t agree, it wouldn’t break.

The decision had been made during the many follow ups with Master Clinkscale that Harry would write a letter to Petunia and encourage her to continue to think of her home as a place Harry would call home too. The team had given me a special envelope imbued with runic magic. Once sealed none of the Dursleys would be able to see the envelope until they had been on their trip for ten days. After that Petunia would be able to find it in one of her bags and read it. Harry needed to be the one to write the letter for a number of reasons, mostly because of legal reasons, but also because Petunia would never feel threatened by him.

Petunia had some understanding of James Potter’s friends from Lily talking about her years at Hogwarts when she came home. Even should she not know how close they were, or even remember their names any longer, she would most likely assume that Harry would not have written to her under duress. All Harry would have to do is mention that friends of his father had come to my home and that I wouldn’t remember it and Harry would be free from their abuses. This had been a part of my earliest of plans. In this way Harry could stay near by without having to be enslaved to the Dursleys, without them questioning him ever, and with a plausible excuse for them to give the neighbors outlined in the letter.

I had spent the last weekend crafting letters and would be reports. Several letters for Harry to look over and decide on for Petunia. The rest were for Albus, I would need to keep up my supposed spying on Harry for him. I would absolutely have to provide a report about the Dursley family winning this holiday and how Harry would be staying with me for the duration. In addition to that I had prepped an outline of what I would tell him of Harry’s month long stay with me on Wisteria. I was so angry and volatile though, that I wound up throwing out most of it and starting from scratch several times. Eventually, I had a good enough letter to send through the floo to Albus.

I may have been upset when I wrote it, but I was even more so when I received his response on Tuesday. I was upset and very, very lucky. After one of our meetings Clinkscale had encouraged me to get a Dispelling Box. It would work by alerting me that whatever was placed within had magic attached to it and report what that magic was to a diary linked to the Box. The Dispelling Box could then clear the magics from the object in question. It was a shortcut in low level cursebreaking apparently, and it came in handy with the letter I received from Albus.

The Box had glowed when I tipped the letter out of the enchanted message tube. When I looked over to the linked diary I found that there was a mild compulsion charm so that the reader holding it would believe everything said in the letter. Did that mean Albus realized I doubted him? Was it possible I had been revealed as a…?

Actually, what was I now?

I wasn’t his spy. I wasn’t a double or triple agent. Or was I? Could one be a double agent if they decided to work on their own? Maybe.

After reading the letter, I relaxed a little more. When I had written to Albus I made sure to include my thoughts on how the Dursleys would come back from their holiday crueler to Harry than when they had left. His letter was just all about how Harry is safer in a truly muggle environment and whatever small differences there are between the family he is certain they will work out.

What a load of rubbish.

26 January 1985

After Harry had settled into my home and finalized his letter to Petunia, we had gone about practicing our acting in our Fabulousa disguises. He definitely had fun playing with the different hairstyles and complexion possibilities. I had to disappoint him with the fact that we had to wear one of the styles that did not have animation in it since we would be around muggles. After some time, we were each suitably disguised and understood the characters that we would play while out and about. We were pretending that this was the first time that young Richard would be joining his mother, a muggleborn, in Diagon Alley. It would explain away what was sure to be excitement and fascination in everything that was going on while also allowing him to ask questions about anything he saw. I absolutely wanted to encourage him to ask me questions and enjoy the magic of the alleys, he was still so quiet and it was worrisome.

I was certain, or perhaps paranoid, that my floo was being monitored. Not by the ministry as Albus would never have allowed that for someone in my position – the connection he put in for me was almost assuredly illegal – but rather that it was monitored by Albus himself. If I were to take two people through and back with the floo then it would be incredibly obvious that I was telling Harry about magic and more. I also couldn’t catch the Knight Bus from Little Whinging as a new family of muggleborns in the area would be interesting. It was nearly an hour and a half to get into London without magical assistance and that was definitely not something I wanted to put an anxious Harry through. Luckily, Clinkscale had already thought of a clever plan to get us both to the alleys without a worry.

The Knight Bus is famous as a transportation method for the stranded witch or wizard. It magically finds them to pick them up and then it magically moves with an impossible speed to get them to where they need to be. All while moving in, around, and sometimes straight through the muggles and their own transportation methods. There are, however, car services available to those who would prefer this method of transportation over the more common floo or apparition. Because these vehicles do not require multiple pick ups one simply tells the enchanted vehicle their destination and it drives itself. After the passengers had disembarked and said the correct pass phrase, the vehicle would “park” itself until called back. When one was done with whatever errand and wanted the vehicle back they used the small enchanted box the vehicle was parked in to recall the vehicle to them.

The downside of these vehicles, called Princely Carriages from a company of the same name, is that they are shockingly expensive. Even just to rent one would be ridiculous. They did not have day to day rentals, instead one could rent one for a week or a month only and the order for that time would need to be put in fairly far in advance. The weekly rental amount was 12 Galleons or £60 and the monthly amount was 114 Galleons or £570. It took a blink of a second for me to remember about inflation. There were still things that I did or thought that did not fit in with this time period. If my younger future self was looking to hire a car for that amount of time these prices would be excellent, but the reality was that everything in this time period needed to be multiplied by a factor of four to get near the inflated prices of the future. That meant it was at least twice the amount to hire a Princely Carriage as opposed to a regular car in the future. When Clinkscale mentioned the price of buying one my eyes nearly burst from my head. For a quarter of a million galleons Harry and I could have safe, untraceable, reliable transport with built in security. It was a huge expense.

We talked about it for a long time. What eventually won me over was the plans for Harry’s education. There was no way that he was going to continue his education in Little Whinging and he had a great deal to learn about the magical world. It would be best to spread out the places where he would receive such education to limit the possibility of anyone tracing him back and causing him harm. It would also be a way that Harry could escape a bad situation by himself if ever I was incapacitated or fending off some difficulty. Harry would be able to call the carriage to himself and direct it towards a safe house.

Clinkscale was able to quickly acquire a standard Princely Carriage for us and I had been testing it out for a few days since then. It really was an ingenious piece of magic. Or should I say pieces of magic? There were so many layers of magic upon magic for this that I was in awe of it. When it was initially handed over to me I was given a black lacquered box no longer than the size of my thumb and perhaps four centimeters or so deep. It was inside the box that the carriage was stored. The first time activating it was different than the simple recall as the magics would need to be established with the new owner. Once that was done, a full size vehicle was in front of me. It certainly looked like an impressive muggle car with a few details to hint at luxury. There was even an illusion of an elderly man in uniform, complete with cap, at the wheel.

Being shown around the carriage by the sales wix was an experience.

“Princely Carriages have the speed and ability that matches or rivals that of the Knight Bus. There are swerve and safety features to interact or avoid on muggle roadways. Light muggle repellent features are added into the muggle based illusion of the vehicle. Which can change colors, should you wish. The interior is heavily charmed to ensure passenger comfort and safety during their journey. With excessive amounts of space for people and parcels, the Princely Carriage can fit 13 fully grown adults and their packages. The carriage can be divided into 3 different compartments to allow for privacy, perhaps if the lady wishes to change for dinner after a long day out. The self parking feature that shrinks the vehicle and puts it into the recall box while you enjoy your day out is standard on every Princely Carriage. Just use the recall feature to bring your Princely Carriage back out for your next adventure. Useable by all magical beings and children.”

Clinkscale had informed me that the beings that usually hired or bought these types of vehicles from companies like Princely Carriages were chiefly those that traveled a great deal. They would take the miniature parked vehicles in their storage boxes with them to various countries around the world. The magic of the muggle illusions would then adjust to local customs and laws for their vehicles and roadways. If we were to take it to someplace like America, for instance, then the driver and steering wheel would be on the other side and some details of the make and model of the car would appear different. The magic was also alert to any requirements by magical law in each country for such vehicles. Apparently, several magical nations required a license to use something like the Princely Carriage and a fee would usually need to be paid. As soon as the Carriage was used the license would appear in the space where the glove compartment should be and the fee would be transferred from the linked Gringotts account. All without divulging the owner or user of the magical vehicle.

It made sense to me. Though I would never be able to apparate, I did understand the basics of it. One had to be able to picture their destination and if the person had never been to that destination before it made it much more difficult to apparate to it. That is one of the reasons apparition points were made available in busy areas. A never changing place that was safe to pop in and out of with a limited possibility of apparating into the middle of something.

There was a way to apparate based off of geographic coordinates. This was a grid system laid out and rarely updated that, to my knowledge, covered most of Europe and Asia. But the people that did train for apparating based off coordinates were law enforcement as often the public at large found it too difficult or bothersome to learn. The Princely Carriage would allow a magical family to travel all over simply by using what amounted to GPS coordinates and not have to worry about apparating to unknown places or trying to find a public floo nearby.

With a vehicle ready and a letter to Petunia finalized, Harry and I would have to walk a short distance in a randomly chosen direction before recalling the Carriage. I whole heartedly did not want Harry to ever have to put on the clothes the Dursleys had loaned him ever again. Even if it meant he looked better than he should on our walks, I did not want him to ever feel like he did when he was only allowed to borrow the worst of his cousin’s castoffs. Nothing he had before was truly given to him, the Dursleys had repeatedly drilled that into him since he had arrived. He was allowed to borrow what was unwanted, but even that was not his to have. It was unacceptable, even to keep up with our cover. Instead I had bought Harry an overly large woolen pea coat in a deep blue and a matching cap. Underneath this he could wear whatever he wanted of the clothes I had already purchased him and later we would get more clothing that he could pick out on his own. For myself, however, I put on my old cat lady persona and had a change in my shopping bag.

Once we had gotten far enough in a direction that Harry had chosen, I recalled the Carriage in a hard to see place. The muggle repellent and illusion charms helped people think that the car had always been there and to not worry about it, but it was always appropriate to take precautions. Especially when one was charged with the care and safety of a child. Harry thought the Carriage was an absolute delight. Though he had seen a few bits of magic in my home he had never seen something as magical as this yet. It was a wonderful thing to see such innocent joy on his face. To hear his giggles as he got into the vehicle, when he realized it was a great deal bigger on the inside, made my heart feel a little lighter.

By the time the Carriage pulled up to the drop off point near the Flourish and Blotts muggle entrance, about thirty minutes later, we were disguised as a young muggleborn woman and her son on a day outing. It’s easy enough to pick up on who is who in the small community of Magical Britain. Even if you don’t know all the names of everyone’s cousins, you can certainly tell who has grown up in the magical world, who has grown up in the muggle world, and who has known elements of both. Using elements of both muggle and magical fashion as an adult makes it obvious you did not grow up in the magical world. Which is what I was doing on this trip, it was the best sort of disguise, a few words and gestures here and there would cement the idea that I was a muggleborn for anyone who passed us.

While I had initially thought that Harry’s joy and enthusiasm for the magic of Diagon Alley would be a triumph for both of us, it was actually the fact that he allowed me to hold his hand the entire way to Gringotts. He was in awe of the casual magic and the ambience of the alleys, but he leaned into me and his little hand grasped mine as we walked along. It took everything I had to maintain the facade of a woman who walked with him like this a thousand times before and not to tear up at the feel of tiny fingers and little gasps of amazement. It wasn’t until we reached the stairs of the bank that I realized why Harry might be so at ease with me to not only allow physical contact, but to also take comfort from me during this little trip.

To him I was the hero of the story. To him I was the person who saved him from the Dursleys and showed him the wonders of magic. I breathed roughly for a few seconds at the top of the stairs. It was such a big responsibility. Such a big role to be the hero. His hero.

I admit I almost let myself panic in that moment. But I looked down at Harry as we crossed the lobby, his disguise a mop of curly brown hair and dark brown eyes that were watching everything around him, and I knew that I could help him. Hadn’t that been the point all along? To save as many as possible? To help Harry as much as possible? To stop two Dark Lords from destroying a single society?

I suppose now it felt real. It felt like I was really, truly doing this. As though my anger, my worries, my being reborn, had kept me from feeling how monumental this task I had set myself truly was. Here, in the magically hushed lobby of Gringotts Bank, about a month after I had been born, I realized that I was going to be the god damned hero even if Albus Dumbledore himself tried to fight me on it.

All because of tiny fingers in my hand.

26 January 1985

The entire bank was on high alert. A major account holder, last of his name, who was hunted by his own people would be arriving today. We could not do anything that might alert the humans to the importance of the day as it would cause even further safety issues. There were spies everywhere for Albus Dumbledore as well as the Death Eaters that remained loyal to the ways of Voldemort.

I knew the moment the last of the Potter line stepped over the gilded emblem of the bank.

After weeks of learning the horrors a child under my management had been through, he would finally be welcomed by my clan into the halls of the Nation. We had readied a special room for him within the healing caverns, one that is used by the human children of the clans. He would be received there as family, as kin of my kin. Though I could not make it true as once we did due to the agreements made with the human governments, it would not stop me and others from treating him in that manner. Earlier this week Madam Figg and I had discussed how I could extend this protection to the young Potter, how he would benefit from being kin of my kin. It was an easy decision all around. In terms that she and the young child could understand, I was effectively a godfather to him.

Master Wardsmith Rayner was waiting in the caverns with much the same mindset as I found myself. This child had been dipped in a river of wild magic after a horribly traumatic event brought about by a human who presented himself as the true leader of the old ways of his people and the manipulations of a human who presented himself as kindness and light. The songs that raged through me as I danced amongst the stones of old could have brought low empires in the days of my ancestors so strong was the pain of this knowledge. To be forced to safe keep his own abusers with a magical burden nearly all adult humans could not shoulder was an outrage of decency. The amount of betrayal this child had experienced already, most adults would never know.

I had spent most of the day before in solemn meditation to prepare. I was not certain I could keep such strong emotions to myself if I was not proactive about them, a heavy stone a raging star. There was much to feel, but too much to do. As it was, when the young Potter was shown into my office with his guardian, my voice was as rough as new cut stone, sharp and coarse.

“Welcome, Mr Potter. I have been waiting some time to greet you personally. I am Master Clinkscale of the Goblin Nation.”

The shy child tried for a smile, but was more of a grimace as he swayed bodily towards Madam Figg. She stayed him with a hand to his back and it was obvious that the child enjoyed her company and trusted her. The response made me glad that I too had trusted this woman.

“I think Harry is just a little overwhelmed already.” She gently motioned the young Mr Potter to one of the chairs opposite my desk and we all sat.

“Do not worry Mr Potter. All of the Nation wishes to assist in keeping you safe and healthy,” unfortunately this only seemed to make the child more shy. I cleared my throat and directed my comments to Madam Figg instead, “We will need to do the confirmation test before we move on to the rest of the visit. I know that you wanted a family tree made for Mr Potter, would you like to do that at the same time?”

The child had looked curious at the mention of a family tree, perhaps it was meant to be a surprise? No matter, what’s done is done.

“Yes, let’s do that at the same time.” As she turned to quietly speak to Mr Potter about what would be needed for this I carefully tapped out a message to have the awaiting Masters come in for the task.

All children are frightened of the letting ceremonies. It is a good fear for the young. Fear tells them they should not do something that causes them pain, that causes them to bleed. It is an instinct that the young should have while they are small and too weak to protect themselves. That is what an adult is meant to do, to protect the young and weak. What I think most of us had not counted on was just how intense that fear might become with a child like Mr Potter. He looked as though he might faint from panic as he brought the ceremonial blade to his hand and sliced.

Madam Figg was whispering soothing words to the child as he placed his bloodied hand on the stone, her hand making small circles on his back to comfort him. As the stone pulled blood and magic from Mr Potter for the confirmation of his identity and the creation of a tree, he began to bodily shake. Though it had in reality only been moments, it felt to all that the length of time had stretched before the Masters declared enough had been let.

With his hand being magically healed and his fears being soothed by Madam Figg, I directed the Masters to their tasks. We were immediately able to confirm that the child was one Harry James Potter. The tree that Madam Figg had wanted made for the young one would take almost twelve days to be fully complete with all of the supplemental enchantments she requested. I was sure it would be a great work of art that the Master would complete, such was the feeling the Nation had grown for this child since understanding his circ*mstances.

He appeared to be calmer now, asking Madam Figg questions about the tree, and I believed it safe to speak without the worry of startling him. “If you would like Mr Potter, I too have stories of the generations before you. My clan has held the honor of the Potter accounts for centuries. I myself have held my position as the Manager of Estates and took up the role as Master of the Potter accounts when your grandfather Fleamont Potter was just beginning to create another boon for the accounts. He was a young man making his way in the world with a talent in potions.”

Finally a true smile came for the child. He was happy and astounded at hearing of his kin. A good sign, I thought as I rose from my chair. It was time for him to be shown to the healing caverns. Leading them from my office to the carts I felt the need to strengthen my hold on my emotions. There was no doubt that this child would require a great deal of healing, I had to be able to stand strong against the waves that would crash against me.

The juvenile healing caverns were wide and tall, lit by a thousand star crystals embedded into the stone. The area I led Mr Potter to was set with appropriately sized furnishings to make our young feel more comfortable. Master Healer Erlast was already awaiting us with her assistants and a calm demeanor. She had served as a Master Healer with a juvenile specialty for the betterment of the Nation for a hundred years. Her temperament was as strong and cool as silver, those who were charged within her care had no fear of such a kind being.

Master Rayner was here as well, with two of her own assistants, after having taken a crash course in juvenile medicines. For Master Rayner dealing with a living wardstone was a new and difficult task that she seemed to revel in. Unfortunately, the reveling was not appropriate and needed to be reined in by the tempering of Master Erlast. I was confident that the plans the four of us had laid out and approved would work well while causing the least amount of stress to the young Mr Potter as possible.

“Harry,” said Madam Figg, “This is Master Healer Erlast, she is in charge of caring for the health of all the children. And this is Master Wardsmith Rayner, she is in charge of the teams looking at the magic around your protections so we can understand it better.”

It had been a quiet conversation one evening between just myself and Madam Figg, where we spoke on the importance of titles and the differences between those of the world she was familiar with and that of the Goblin Nation. While Madam Figg had explained the importance of address in both the Magical and Muggle sides of Britain, I had taken the time to introduce her to the significance of titles within the Nation. To her understanding Master Rayner had just been the head of a department, a leader of cursebreakers, instead of a leader within the Nation. To be Master of something was a very different thing to the humans outside the clans. Though we discussed the various rankings and titles for forms of address outside the Nation, she did think my opinion on the hereditary titles vis-à-vis the Wizengamot members was rather humorous. I was heartened to see her apply the knowledge from that conversation as she introduced the Masters to her charge.

Though Mr Potter had calmed a great deal since using the bloodstone, he became nervous once more. Wide eyes took in the crystals lighting the area and the assortment of beings waiting to tend to him as he crowded into Madam Figg’s skirts. For a moment I worried that the child would start to have a panic attack, but Master Erlast had things well in hand.

“Mr Potter, nothing that we do today will hurt you in the slightest. We will take some measurements and a thorough history. Then we will look more closely at your scar. I am worried that there might be some residue of a curse there, but Master Rayner believes that it might be a source of protective magics.” She reached out an old and gnarled hand to the child and motioned him to the bed, Madam Figg trailing right behind. “These are my assistants Garlock, Eggit, and Filnar. They are going to help get as much history as possible. We know that you have already been through a great deal in your young life and we don’t want to overlook anything.”

She gave him a kindly smile and her assistants arranged themselves around her with their tools. Special stone slabs standing off to the side would act as a living record of their findings that could be accessed later to go over in detail. Small gems were held in ornate spheres that began to hover in the hands of the three assistants. These power gems would help in the direction of healing magics. For this first visit, however, all they would do was direct the recording of an extremely thorough history.

Master Rayner and her two assistants stood outside the circle the healers had made around the bed so they wouldn’t be disruptive in the hours it might take to collect all of the data. They would be watchful for any interference that the scar caused in the casting, though, as the current theory for both Masters was that there would be some kind of magic embedded in it. They disagreed about what kind, but they were both taking acceptable precautions.

I stepped towards the back wall to be out of the way myself, but still able to observe the proceedings. Mr Potter looked confused the first few minutes, stiff and uncomfortable in the bed he was lying in, even though his guardian was near him. It was unfortunate that they could not have physical contact as he had shown already to be very responsive to such a thing. After about twenty minutes of nothing more happening than some light coming from the powered jewels, the child began to relax. Madam Figg encouraged him to sleep, it was going to be a long day, there was no need to stay awake during the examination.

I’m not sure if Mr Potter did fall asleep or if, after nearly an hour in the examination bed, he finally relaxed enough to seem asleep. I was not worried that an hour had passed, we had assumed it would take at least two hours given the damage done by his relatives and the trauma done by the one calling himself Lord Voldemort. When we reached the three hour mark, however, I was concerned. At hour four, with sweat beginning to bead across the faces of the healers, I admitted to myself that I was worried. When the fifth hour started Master Rayner, Madam Figg, and myself began exchanging apprehensive glances.

We had planned for many eventualities, but this had not been one of them. We had in place at least five different instances in which it would be acceptable for the examination to be interrupted, as well as the specific ways in which to do so. But there had never been a thought given to what should be done if the examination lasted so long.

Though I am not overly familiar with such matters, I do know that the longest healing examination ever done by a goblin healer was after a large battle. The healer had tried to do an examination on a group of warriors at the same time. It had lasted for ten hours.

The healer, the histories tell, had been one of the last left alive and had hoped to examine and heal all of the wounded at one time. Instead most of them had begun to die during the examination, which in turn led to the examination taking longer. Each death was recorded as a new injury and each cause had to be examined for it every time one of the wounded patients died. Causing a never ending cycle as the magics tried to record every new thing as it happened. It is told as a cautionary tale.

Cautiously, at the sixth hour, I made my way around the edges of the room. I did not want to interfere unjustly, I wanted to be able to look into the face of Master Erlast. When I finally could face the Master, I saw the stress on their face and the hair matted to the sides of their head with sweat. As I observed, her eyes opened to look at mine and a wordless and brief discussion was held between us. She would hold the examination as long as she could.

A rough intake of breath from the bed drew the attention of everyone in the silent room. The child had fallen asleep at some point and was in the beginnings of an unkind dream. Madam Figg crouched low to whisper loving things to him and he relaxed again. It felt like the whole room breathed in and relaxed with him. Another look at Master Erlast confirmed she was certain about maintaining the examination and I circled back to my place to wait out the collection of what must be a truly immense amount of information.

After eight hours and thirty seven minutes, the light in the gems extinguished and the examination was completed. Master Rayner and myself tended to the healers, helping to steady them after such a long time being strong against the waves. Word traveled outside the room and another healer came to check on them, pronouncing them tired but strong.

Master Rayner and I gathered around Master Erlast. Madam Figg reluctant to leave Mr Potter gave a look of worry our way. I did not wish to push the Master but such an extended time spent on an examination for a battle hardened adult was unheard of, for a child not yet of five years? It was absurd.

“Master Erlast, can you give us any indication of why it took such a great length of time?”

“I could Master Clinkscale, but I’m not sure if any of us would truly believe it without further analyzing the collected data.” She sighed and shook her head before taking another sip of her drink, probably dosed with a fortification potion.

“Master Erlast, surly you can give some indication or theory? Was it due to the scar?”

“I know that you believe that the protections might be anchored in the scar Master Rayner, but I am unsure. I am unsure of everything at this point. There should never have been so much data for a single being, especially not a juvenile. It was as though I was pulling decades of information, decades during which a great deal had harmed the health of the patient. I don’t know how to explain it with the limited information that consciously passes through me before reaching the slabs.”

“That does change things,” the Master Wardsmith stated, “There are too many variables with such intense sacrificial magics. Is it possible that you were examining both the scion Potter and his mother? Or perhaps him and both parents?”

I had not believed such a thing was possible, but it seemed that what was possible simply bent itself around the young Mr Potter. The Master Healer was giving it some thought before answering so I looked over to Madam Figg to give her an encouraging nod.

“It is an interesting theory. But I know a little about the lives of the senior Potters, they would not have suffered so much. If it is a secondary individual that is getting caught in the healing magics, then they suffered. They suffered greatly. Deep gouging dark magics.”

I swallowed sharply.

“Masters,” I said in a harsh whisper, “There were four people in the Potter Cottage. Three Potters and their attacker.”

A heavy stone fell between the three of us, a thick frame that seemed to slow time as our minds worked over the horror of such a mutilated aberration leaving something profound enough on our child that it showed in a healing examination. In a single turn all three of us slowly looked towards the child still sleeping on the bed, his guardian tight in her posture as she awaited answers by his side. If she felt our eyes on them she did not look up from her vigil.

“Master Rayner, with this new information should we wait to have you cast your own analysis on Mr Potter?”

“No, actually,” she answered, “If anything we should make sure to do it now. Master Erlast and I will need to do a great deal of comparisons.”

I nodded as she gathered her assistants to her for a whispered conversation. Though we had not planned to go so long today, it would be better to get it all done when the child was in a rather contented state. I walked over to them to inform Madam Figg of our next move.

“Madam Figg,” I said softly enough not to wake the child. She didn’t look up from him but nodded an acknowledgment. I can’t imagine how difficult this day has already been for her. “The Master Healer says she collected a great deal more information than should be expected of a juvenile, but cannot give a good theory as to why until she analyzes the collected data. Master Rayner would like to go forward with the approved plan, though it is much later than we had intended.”

“That’s fine. He’s sleeping well. The move and everything has been hard on him. So much to be anxious about, so much to be excited over. He needed this sleep.”

I hummed an agreement with her before moving back into my place, watching the proceedings out of the way. Unlike with the healers, the Master Wardsmith and her assistants took exactly two hours to complete their tasks. There were many brilliant displays of light as the possibilities danced over Mr Potter. Some even I could tell must be protective magics, a deep feeling within me warming as they were brought out and made obvious. But there was a time that they brought up a sickly magic and that deep place within shrunk back on instinct, not of fear but of disgust. Something was so wrong with this magic that they had brought forth, making it visible to the room, something that every instinct cried out to move away from the wrongness of it.

When I had a measure of control over this intense disgust I looked towards the chui that was still peacefully sleeping on his bed and his tense guardian. She had looked towards the magic as well, but instead of the disgust I felt she seemed both sad and resolved. Almost as though she had expected something awful to be attached to the scar though she had only commented previously that there were too many possibilities and not enough facts.

After Master Rayner and her assistants had finished collecting their data, the Master looked grim faced and pale. She nodded to me as she left to begin her analysis, Master Erlast and her assistants moving with them.

“Madam Figg? Do you need a few moments?”

“I’m weary Master Clinkscale,” she sighed as she looked up towards me. “I may not understand all the data gathered today, but I know enough to be more concerned than I was before.” She smiled ruefully before standing. “I think Harry and I will have to put off our other chores and visit the alleys another time.”

“That’s understandable. There is also so much information for the Masters to review that we will be unable to give you an idea on the type of healing regimen young Mr Potter should be on until it is more thoroughly scrutinized. Perhaps come back tomorrow and I will see if I can have an update for you at the least.”

“Thank you Master Clinkscale.”

Alone in my office after the pair had left Gringotts and the alert had gone down, I felt markedly empty. There was no closure. There was nothing done. There was no help that could be offered this day. It didn’t feel like failure. It felt like bone jarring sadness, a cold emptiness.

As though I had witnessed something that was never meant to happen.

27 January 1985

The visit to Gringotts had been an intense day for everyone involved. I had thought I was prepared, but I suppose you can really only prepare so much for the unknown.

Watching as the Master Healer held the weight of the examination was stressful. I wanted to stop it and confess to knowing about the horcrux. I wanted to reveal all my secrets just to put an end to it. A ridiculous feeling, given the reality of the situation. Knowing that Harry had a horcrux would only raise suspicions. Knowing that such a thing existed and that Voldemort might have used them? That would fit in with other theories and knowledge I had already displayed as a spy for Albus Dumbledore. I just needed to wait for them to recognize what was happening.

When the three Masters were speaking to each other after the examination, I had to stay with Harry. I couldn’t even look up. I would have completely given everything away if I had caught their eye. Instead I focused all my attention on Harry and making sure he continued to have sweet dreams. He must not have slept at all since arriving at my home.

The work that the Master Wardsmith did with her magic was even more obvious than the never ending examination. The darkness of Voldemort’s magic an infection that had hovered over the little boy. At least, I had thought, this would mean they could figure out how the horcrux was affecting Harry.

I was not tired as in a need for sleep by the end of our time at Gringotts. Rather, I felt that my tiredness was soul deep. Harry seemed to be exhausted as well, though perhaps more physically. I had never tried to carry a sleeping four year old anywhere though and that was an adventure.

We had been driven by our Carriage to a small alley a block or so from my home and he had been mostly asleep for the thirty minute ride. It took several minutes to get him awake enough to walk to the house and when we arrived I was basically carrying his weight. It reminded me of the night I had found him trapped outside the Dursley’s home, freezing to death in the snow. At least this time it was not because he had been harmed.

I had been a bit driven and emotional over the past month as I tried to manipulate things in order to save him. When he and I finally made it into Gringotts together, I crashed into the reality of it all. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for him to have that feeling as well. To finally be able to relax in a protected space and allow himself to feel the reality of what was happening. No wonder the small boy was exhausted.

“So Harry,” I started while buttering some of my toast, “what did you think of Diagon Alley and Gringotts?” It was nearly ten in the morning, we were finally awake and eating a light meal at my kitchen table.

“It was good. I liked Mr Clinkscale, he seems nice. We were there for a real long time though.”

“Yes, we weren’t supposed to be there that long. We will have to go back this afternoon to do our shopping and get the medicines they will want to prescribe you.”

We had talked about how Harry would most likely need to join me in my regimen of potions and physical exercise. I had explained to him that I hadn’t taken very good care of myself after my wife had died in the war and I wanted to do better. He had been so solemn as he nodded along, sad for my loss and understanding that I wanted him to be better with me.

There had also been the much lighter discussion of our own holiday that we would enjoy while the Dursley family was away. I had tried to let him pick the place to go but that was apparently too much for him. Instead I had stopped by a magical travel agency while in disguise and picked up various brochures and guidebooks for magical holidays around the world. I wanted his first ever holiday to make a big impression on him as well as mark a big change in his life. It would have to be perfect.

While there were plenty of hotels and various homes for rent, what caught my eye was a traveling tour of various campgrounds around unique muggle and magical destinations. With a few stops picked out for exploration over a couple weeks in February, Harry and I focused on making a list of the things we would need. We had planned to make several stops after we spent maybe three hours at Gringotts for the exam and testing. Instead we spent over ten and a half hours in the healing rooms.

I was hopeful that the meeting wouldn’t be too long, but had decided spur of the moment that we should look over tents and trunks before going to the meeting. If they were able to complete our order in a few hours then the time wouldn’t be wasted since we would be in Gringotts. I also wanted to see about getting him several wizard appropriate outfits for when he was in his tutoring for magical subjects. He would need them if he was to be disguised as several different half blood children. Besides this and a few other stops I was very interested in checking out something the travel agency had suggested. There was apparently a school for languages, though as the witch explained it Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages was really more of a shop that sold languages.

As we walked into Carkitt Market hand in hand, Harry’s smile became wider and brighter. I hoped to keep that smile going as much as possible. It wasn’t a far walk to Stowe and Packers, around the corner and up a flight of stairs, but I wasn’t sure if it was the best place to find what we would want. It did seem like a good place to start, however, and then branch out from there.

A young freckle faced woman, looking fresh out of Hogwarts, was leaning on the counter reading through a glossy magazine when the tinkle of the bell alerted her to customers.

“Welcome to Stowe & Packers Magical Bags,” she said with a smile, “is there anything you are looking for in particular?”

Today Harry and I were wearing matching strawberry blonde hair and an extremely pale complexion. Hopefully we matched enough to look closely related to those who noticed us. We had decided on characters of an older aunt who was a squib and her young orphaned nephew who was able to use active magic. This would allow us to ask questions and look confused while seeming to belong.

“Yes, my nephew and I are planning a trip. I wasn’t sure if a trunk or a tent would be better. I definitely want something to invest in so that we could take trips like this more often as he gets older.”

I ruffled Harry’s reddish locks and we smiled at each other before turning back to the sales witch who had been nodding along.

“It really depends on where you are going and what you want to be doing for whether a trunk is better than a tent. Most of the magical spaces and enchanted enhancements are possible in either type. In fact you could even get something as slim as a briefcase or as soft and portable as a rucksack and still have plenty of space and features.”

“I do like the idea of a rucksack, I didn’t know that was even a possibility. But what about security? I know that the tents and trunks can have a great deal of security added to them.”

“Of course all of our designs meant for habitable accommodations have various security and protections that come standard as well as the possibility to add additional features. Why don’t I show you what we have in stock right now? You can also order from our catalog and add unique or personal features for an additional price.”

As she led us back she introduced herself as Marina a great niece of Mr Stowe, she had graduated from Hogwarts just two years ago and was learning the family business. Harry was delighted to hear about Hogwarts and learn about the Hufflepuff house.

“This is a two bedroom cottage design that is fairly popular,” Marina said as she lifted an olive colored canvas bag from the shelf. “The rucksack comes with the standard protections against the elements as well as what we call magical misfires, when a stray spell might hit the bag. These features also offer the owner the ability to activate whether or not the bag is stationary when another living sentient being is inside. The magic picking up on the difference between say a kneazle and a little boy,” she gave Harry a smile. “You just set the bag on the ground like this and flip the top open like so.”

As she lifted the top, folding it back and out of the way, the opening of the bag seemed to grow much wider. Harry was practically laughing at how wonderful it was already, I was excited for him to see something else with space enchantments on it. He did so love how the Carriage was bigger on the inside.

“Before we go inside I need to make sure that it will be safe.”

The young woman shook her head while she smiled, “Don’t worry nothing in here will be able to get away from him while we look around.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, a pinched look on my face, before clicking my tongue and looking back at the befuddled girl. “I’m a squib, my sister and her husband were able to use magic. But they died in the war.” Poor Marina was already pale and she lost the little color she had as I spoke. “Magical homes can be anywhere from difficult to dangerous for a squib since the home might respond to them differently. Are there things in this popular cottage design that only respond to the use of magic? Or even how you opened the bag, does that require magic to do?”

“Oh– Uh, well– The um–,” she was struggling, but I was determined to let her sort herself out. She had seemed happy to be learning the family business and that business would mean interacting with people like me. If I could help her learn before someone more sensitive came along, all the better. “The kitchens definitely require the use of a wand in the cottage design, but not all of them do that. The rucksacks and the umbrella tents do require a push of magic to get them set up, but most of the other tents and almost all of the trunks do not require that. Are you busy later this afternoon? Say in two hours?”

“We have a few others stops to make before a meeting at Gringotts. I’m not sure how long that might take. Why?”

“Well,” she took a deep steadying breath, “my uncle is coming in later and I could discuss with him your specific needs. I apologize, but I haven’t thought of looking into those types of requirements or issues before and I would want you to have the best product for you.”

I might have raised an eyebrow at that, but I agreed that we would come back before the end of the day and meet with Mr Stowe. It was better, after all, to meet with someone who had a great deal of experience in the profession. I smiled at Harry as we made our way out of the shop, but he seemed a little disheartened.

“It’s okay Harry, we just have to remember that not everyone is thinking about the needs of people who aren’t like themself. This was a great teaching moment for that young woman,” I squeezed his hand as we reached the bottom step. “She’s learning how to talk to and help people like me that can’t use magic the same way as her. We’ll still get a good place for our trip, we will just be doing it later today instead. Okay?”

He seemed mollified by that and we walked down towards the next shop on our list. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time at the School of Extraordinary Languages, I just wanted to better understand their gimmick. How exactly does one sell languages?

The building that housed the school, or was it a shop, was split with a small café on the ground floor and the language school on the first level. The stairs and walls up to the first level had been painted with words from dozens of different languages appearing to meld and blend into one another. When Harry touched one of the words we both startled at the sound of the word being spoken from the wall. We were laughing by the time we reached the entrance, having touched more than a few words on purpose on our way up.

Inside was a small, bare reception area and a large wooden counter, behind it was a bored looking teenager looking up at us. Stifling my laughter and smoothing my skirt, I walked up to him with little Harry trailing behind me.

“Welcome to the Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages a place to meet all your extraordinary needs,” the spotty teen said in a bored monotone. “We specialize in the learning of languages and currently have over 200 languages of varying dialects that you can learn before the week is up. Would you like to see our catalog?”

I almost started laughing again. This poor kid was so bored and had obviously been repeatedly drilled in that statement to the point that it had become something he might hear in his nightmares. But I was interested in the catalog so I answered in the affirmative and started to take a look.

In addition to the most widely spoken languages of the day they also offered so-called dead languages like Latin or Ancient Egyptian, various types of old Germanic and Scandinavian languages, all things that would help with runes and other magics. They also offered magical languages like Mermish and Gobbledegook. The prices were different based on the categories they had the languages under, though the categories didn’t make much sense. Perhaps it was just based on popularity? It hardly mattered, the prices for every category was outrageous, the lowest being 85 G.

“Excuse me, but what are the classes like? There’s really no explanation about this process.”

“That would be because it is a secret and patented process,” he said in his bored nasally tone, not bothering to look up from his paper. “One can learn up to four languages from the same category at one time in three days. If you choose you can purchase an entire category for a discounted price and spread out the time that you learn over the course of year from date of purchase,” he finally looked up at me, “Please be sure to read the warnings and side effects located on the last page of the catalog before purchase. Using magic during the three days that you are learning your new language or languages can cause the lessons to be void. Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages is not responsible should such a thing occur and no refunds will be issued.”

“Right.” He had said all of that with a bored and emotionless tone that put me on edge. “What if one can’t do magic?”

He blinked and looked back up at me, finally showing some emotion, “What? The little one?” he pointed over to Harry. “As long as he doesn’t do any accidental magic it should be fine. No one’s had their kid learn these so young, though there’s no reason you can’t do it.”

“That’s a good idea, certainly would give him a leg up once he gets to Hogwarts. But I was thinking about me, I’m a squib.”

“Oh, then you’ll be fine. It’s wand levels of magic that cause the disruption,” he said waving his hand to brush away the concern. “Sometimes the kids they get upset enough and their accidental magic can get that high, but not squibs. And this would work for muggles too, just not quite as well.”

I was pleasantly surprised by his warm and informed answer. Not only had this company made sure whatever their patented method was would work on various people, this young man seemed to understand the specific differences and how that would affect things.

“So if I wanted to make a potion during those three days it would not be enough magic to cause this disruption?”

“That’s right. But if someone did so much as a Lumos it would cause issues and the whole thing would just,” he made a falling motion with his hands. “That’s why people get so few languages, but also why they try and do ‘em all at once. Better to have three days of no magic than twelve days. Some people don’t want to risk that though, think they might mess up and use magic, so they only do one cause of the cost, ya see?”

I did see. It would be an interesting conundrum for the average adult witch or wizard. Some magical enchantment or highly specialized potion to grant them language abilities that would fail if they did common tasks that I would never be able to perform. Do you bunker down for three days and do a large number all at once? Or do you just do one and try and go about those days as carefully as possible?

“Well we are going on a trip soon and I would like to know at least a few of these languages fluently. Do I need to make an appointment?”

“Nope, just come in during normal business hours and we’ll get you set up in a room in the back. Only the customer is permitted back there though,” he gave a pointed look to Harry.

“I’m sure that will be fine. Does it take very long?”

“Nope, most people stay longer cause they are a bit green around the gills. I wouldn’t eat before you come in.”

“Okay. Thank you so much. I’m going to look over this and decide on the languages. I’ll be back by the end of the week, I’m sure.”

“No problem and have a nice day. Thank you for visiting the Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages.”

As we slowly went down the stairs, I encouraged Harry to try and press as many different languages on the walls as he could reach. It was the equivalent of letting a child press every button on every electronic toy in a store, but it made him smile and didn’t hurt anything. We turned towards Horizant Alley and he took my hand again, bringing me a warm smile of my own.

While many were familiar with Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions as it was the only store that was given the Hogwarts approval for making the school’s uniforms, there were many other clothing stores available in the magical district of London. Twilfitt and Tattings, for instance, was a place to get elegant handmade pieces including some accessories such as hats and gloves. However, we wanted Harry to have the appearance of a fair to well off half blood for his various tutors to pick up on and so would be going to Darten Hemmaway on Horizant Alley.

This alley was more widely known for having stores that were more modern or, to the less kind, more muggle. For me there was never a reason not to enjoy the advancements made on the muggle side of the divide, it would be ridiculous to see what they had done and not build on it. But I suppose that Magical Britain is rather ridiculous.

A small chime sounded as we walked into the atelier, cheerfully announcing our entrance. There was no one in the front of the shop, though, and we took our time adjusting to the difference.

Unlike so many of the shops on Diagon Alley, this shop was very modern and stylishly appointed. There was a set of seafoam colored sofas and lounges artfully arranged in the center of the room with a decorative glass coffee table between them. The warm coloring of the wood throughout the store enhanced the feeling of comfort. And, upon closer inspection, what had appeared to be never ending tiles coloring the walls was actually a never ending display of fabric swatches. They had been magically stiffened and placed into the walls, no doubt whole bolts could be drawn out from behind each swatch.

“Hello, thank you for waiting,” said a slender, dark skinned man nearing thirty. His voice was soft and gentle and exceedingly French in its accent. “I am Darten Hemmaway, welcome to my fashion house. How can I be of help today?”

“Lovely to meet you Mr Hemmaway, I’ve heard wonderful things. My name is Sarah and this is little Gerrard. I would like to buy my young nephew here a wardrobe more appropriate for the magical world. I think five or six whole outfits would be fine for now. We are going on a trip soon and I would like it if the pieces could be finished before then.”

“Oh, that’s no problem to do. Maybe a few days at most. Let’s talk fabrics…”

After we had chosen several fabrics and styles, Harry had done an admirable job of letting Monsieur Hemmaway measure him. Collecting my receipt, I thought it best to find a place for us to relax before heading to Gringotts. Harry was doing well, but it still seemed to be overwhelming to him and we had more that needed to be done today.

Since we had already had a late breakfast, almost lunch really, I thought a sweet treat was perfectly acceptable and led him back to Diagon Alley for an ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor. It was a wonderful thing to give this little boy something as simple as an ice cream to make his day even better. It was a sad thing that picking out said ice cream came with so much emotional upheaval on Harry’s part.

Since neither Harry or myself had much knowledge or interest in fashion we had let Monsieur Hemmaway make most of the decisions, readily agreeing to his suggestions. But at the ice cream parlor, Harry was incapable of making a decision without constantly seeking approval from me. When he did get the encouragement he was looking for he still seemed worried that I might do him harm. Whether that was to take away what he was being given or cause him physical harm I was unsure. Either way it led to him cringing through his choice at the counter.

I led him towards a booth in the back where we could each enjoy our treats. The weather may not ever get truly awful in the alleys because of the charms and enchantments, but it was certainly too cold to eat ice cream outside the comfort of the shop.

I was aware that in the canon Harry eventually became more and more outspoken even as he dealt with the continued abuse from his relatives. But I was unsure what to do to help him more than just being a steady and loving influence. I had made note of the psychotherapy services that were offered by the Gringotts Offered Services book. Though I hadn’t thought that there would be a real reason to use them. He was not even five, even if he could grasp understandings that might be challenging for an eight year old. What would he even say to a psychiatrist?

Not to mention the very ingrained stigma against getting psychological help that the older me had in such a high degree that it was barely being balanced by the knowledge and understandings of the younger future me. Or the fact that the muggle world barely knew how to deal with children and the magical world would be so astonished at child abuse that they would probably have no way to help anyhow. In fact the psychotherapy services offered in the book explicitly stated for British wixen that there were no psychotherapists available within the country and there would be an additional fee to arrange visits with those from outside of the country.

This issue would need to be revisited, for now I would be calm and kind and as patient as I could possibly be. It would do no good to spiral while trying to get this all together in Diagon Alley.

“I was thinking about food,” I said as I ate another spoonful of coconut ice cream. Harry looked up from his three scoops in trepidation. “We should have a little cabinet or drawer for you in your room that has healthy snacks and the like. That way you could have it ready and waiting for you whenever you get hungry.”

I had actually been thinking on this point quite a lot. I knew that the Dursleys used food as punishment excessively. They made sure that Dudley ate more than was appropriate and that Harry always ate less than was appropriate. They often threatened to not feed him at all if he didn’t do his chores to their liking. Of course, they were never going to be to the liking of the Dursleys. That was never the point, it was just an excuse to further their abuse. I knew from my future knowledge that people who had experienced food scarcity would often hoard food. In order to get ahead of this, I believed that making sure Harry had a wide range of healthy food available to him would help.

Harry pushed around the chocolate sauce in his bowl while he worried his lip with his teeth.

“It wouldn’t be the only food you could have. We both need to keep our health up with three meals a day and exercise, just like we talked about. But I was thinking if you had your own little stash of drinks and snacks that you liked, it might be nice. What do you think?”

His face pinched in and furrowed in deep concentration. It was absolutely adorable and it took all of my strength not to coo at him like a ridiculous mama bird.

“Would it be a magic cabinet?”

“Yes,” I said, laughing a bit. “It can be a magic cabinet if you want it to be. That would be fine.”

“That sounds good then.”

Our ice cream was sweeter after that and we spoke of many little things that we would want to add to our rooms at the house or the tent we would get later. After a few moments in the little wizards room for Harry to wash up, even the most congenial of children will be sticky after ice cream, we moved on down the alley to a snowy white building that towered over the other shops.

Taking Harry into Gringotts would always be a production. Unlike myself, Harry Potter had a significant amount of wealth and power. His family had been working with the goblins for generations at a higher client level than I would ever be able to reach. I had made a pretty sum during my life selling my unique kneazles, but I’d done better by living in an incredibly frugal manner. Not that much of that sum was left at this point. Harry was the descendent of inventors and titled lords, all of whom seemed to appreciate the goblin’s ability to reinvest and double their vault contents.

For Harry, though, I thought it might be more than the money and prestige. Last of his name, I had overheard one of the goblins say. I already knew that they looked towards young children differently, but perhaps being the last of the Potters increased that exponentially. It wasn’t just Clinkscale either, the other goblins seemed to see Harry as something more in a way I didn’t really know how to identify. They didn’t worship him or some nonsense, they just treated him differently. It was at once both subtle and extremely obvious. I didn’t mind it, but I also didn’t understand it.

Gringotts was on high alert when we stepped into the lobby. Not many would realize the difference. So there are a few more goblins about, a few of them have different weapons, maybe the tellers are a little more sharp with their customers, that’s not a big deal.

Harry and I were met by a young guard and led back into the catacombs. When we got off the cart at the healing cavern I gave Harry an encouraging smile.

“Ah, Madam Figg, right on time. The healers are waiting,” came the happy voice of Master Clinkscale. Indeed the goblin practically glowed with joy as he led us inside.

It was extremely unsettling. It was definitely not the way someone would act after finding out there was a horcrux wedged into the prefrontal cortex of a four year old child. I kept my thoughts to myself, though, and allowed Master Clinkscale to usher Harry back to the exam bed he had been on just the day before. He handed me a small journal detailing all of the potions that they would be prescribing Harry.

“As long as you are happy with the potions, Madam Figg, the healers would like to administer doses now. There are morning and evening doses, we have a box ready for you that should cover two months worth. At which time the young Mr Potter should return for a followup.”

After looking over and approving the various potions, Clinkscale ushered me to a table a bit away from Harry. He would need to take each potion in intervals with resting periods in between to avoid upsetting his stomach, that gave the adults a chance to talk. And as Harry took his potions I found out from the three Masters why everyone looked so happy.

“It seems as though both Master Erlast and Master Rayner were correct in their initial assessments of the young Mr Potter’s health. There is definitely dark magic in the scar, but it was also a part of the protections enacted by his mother.”

“Oh?” I went for shocked and nervous. Had they not found the horcrux? How could I lead them to it without giving everything away?

“Yes, the protections are strongest at that point. The darkness is being constantly contained and destroyed by the warding on scion Potter.”

“If it’s being destroyed is that something we need to worry about?” What were they thinking?

“If I may Master Rayner,” the healer gestured and continued once the Wardsmith nodded. “We have found what appears to be a soul leech trapped within the protections of the rune on Mr Potter’s head. The protections are actively fighting against it, causing it to break down into it’s most basic form. Between the two examinations we were able to determine that the wards are killing off the soul leech and draining away its magic. Mr Potter, in turn, is absorbing the magic of the leech.”

I did not have to affect a look of shock and concern at this point, but numbly nodded encouragement to continue.

“Scion Potter is basically getting a magical transfusion, just like muggles sometimes get a blood transfusion. Think of the scar itself as a pocket of wizard space. Within this space exists a piece of another’s soul. Its foreign magic, magic being anchored by our souls, is also there. The protections are stripping the soul from its magic and the magic is harmlessly drifting through the protections to scion Potter.”

If that were true then why wouldn’t the protections simply destroy the horcrux in Harry’s head? Seventeen years and it wasn’t destroyed enough by the wards Lily created to save Harry?

Except that it wouldn’t have been seventeen years. It would have been ten. As soon as Harry went to Hogwarts the ambient magic there would have negated the wards’ need for wild magic, he would have become more and more vulnerable. Even if it was still chipping away at the horcrux, or the soul leech as they were calling it, then it would have slowed down significantly without the massive additions of natural wild magic. It did, rather neatly, explain how Harry’s magic could be affected by the horcrux without his sanity being affected. The magic of parseltongue was simply seeping through the barrier constantly. When the horcrux was gone at the end of the series, the magic was no longer moving through to him.

“Madam Figg, I know that this information is shocking. However, we have already determined a means in which to finish the destruction of the soul leech in a way that would not be harmful to young Mr Potter. It would also encourage, or feed, if you will, the wards that have already been set down for his protection. We spent most of today ensuring that it would be allowed.”

“Yes, it has never been tried before and we have had to put in a great number of reports for the request already. But we do believe that it will work to end the existence of the soul leech and bolster the protections. However, I would prefer it if Mr Potter were in better physical condition first. He has a great many physical ailments that need to be addressed and it would be against his best interests to have him undergo such an experience when there is no harm in waiting.”

“I agree with Master Erlast,” added Rayner with a nod. “It would be better for him to be at peak physical and magical condition to better absorb the wild magics.”

“What exactly is the proposal to get rid of this soul leech? Is it what caused the long exam yesterday? Where did it even come from?” I gasped, closed my eyes and put my hand over my heart. “Is it Lily’s soul?”

“No, uh,” Master Clinkscale cleared his throat and they all shifted uncomfortably in their chairs while I stared at him with wide hopeful eyes. “We are fairly certain that the soul leech is from Tom Riddle.”

Cue dramatic gasping.

I deserved many, many awards for my performance. Thank you very much.

Eventually, though, I let them calm me down.

“When we spoke about ambient and wild magic,” began Master Clinkscale, “Do you recall that I said wild magic used to naturally spring and collect from the earth? But that these places had run dry?” I gave a nod in recognition, it had been rather interesting to learn about the goblin way of thinking. “Wild magic can also be created by races such as goblins, dwarves, merpeople and more. Each race creates the magic in different ways, but we all do so with the same intent. Without wild magic being created magic itself would end. Think of it like your rainfall cycle. What would happen if it never rained again?”

While I contemplated the utter destruction of the earth as all our waters evaporated and then never again rained down on us, the others at the table were nodding along.

“Have you never thought about why the Goblin Nation mints and circulates the currency for the magical world?” Master Rayner questioned in a softer, more thoughtful voice than I had heard her use previously.

And, no, I had not thought about it. I knew that races like the dwarves and gnomes had similar purposes to the magical populace, but only the coins minted by the goblins were considered true currency. Most magical countries had their own name for each piece of tender, but it was still the Goblin Nation that minted the monies.

“The alloys that the Nation uses are not the same as what humans mine for in their destructive ways from the earth,” the older woman continued in a soft reverence. "Instead goblins use ancient rites to sing into existence magic stars. These Goblin Stars then collide against each other in the mines, their reaction accelerated into massive expansions. Goblin Stars create millions of workable elements for the Nation while also giving back magic to the Earth. Unlike the stars in the sky, these Stars do not turn into what the muggles would call a black hole. Instead the final stage of production is the birth of wild magic. In each element created, such as gold or silver, there is also magic. When something is sung from it, coins or swords or jewelry, the magic of the item increases to the point that it too can give off ambient magic. This is very special as all that gives off ambient magic is considered alive. There are only three races now that can create items of such magic that they increase the world's ambient magic.”

There was a hush that fell over the table as this hardened witch spoke with grace and admiration about the process. It was not something I had ever known about, or thought to even ask about. It sounded like they were using the energy of a star becoming a black hole to make more magic.

Incredible.

“There was once a time when the humans knew of such things, Madam Figg, but the memory of humans is very short. Things pass into tradition for seemingly no reason and none of those humans appear to question anything they call tradition. For instance, are you aware that any household that has a house elf ties them to their vault in Gringotts?”

I blinked at the question which seemed so far off track, but answered in the affirmative. Even houses that didn’t have house elves knew that they should be connected to the family vault, it was just the proper thing to do. Everyone knew that.

They just smiled at me like I was a small, ignorant child.

Perhaps I was.

“Vaults have the coins minted by Gringotts sitting in them not moving. The vaults simply fill up with ambient magical energy. This isn’t good in the eyes of the Nation, but for house elves which might need access to a higher level of magic suddenly? They would have a place to go and get their fill of ambient magic. Long before the elves became so subjugated by the wizards, they were given this access to offset any imbalance in the house itself. Perhaps there weren’t enough wizards in the family creating ambient energy. Or perhaps they lived in an isolated area without enough access to it or anyone else. Gringotts was a haven for them to have access to the magical energy which keeps them alive and healthy.”

“In fact,” cut in Master Healer Erlast, “the reason that there are so few elves these days is because they have gotten less and less access to the necessary magics to keep them healthy. Not just that they are dying younger, but that they are unable to reproduce as much as they once did.”

“Okay,” I said with a wave of my hands, “But what does this have to do with the soul leech and Harry?”

“Those that are within the mines when the songs collide the Goblin Stars are bathed in an extreme amount of wild magics. It is unavoidable, but goblins do not have the same reaction to wild magic inundation as a wixen would. If we have scion Potter properly placed at just the right time the wards will bring into him more wild magic than he could ever have absorbed in the whole of his life– at the rate we saw he did in our tests anyway.”

“Wizards can convert wild magics into the ambient magics used for wand work, it will do him no harm to be bathed in it. Since the wards have had him taking in wild magic as much as possible and converting it to ambient magic, he has a greater ability to do this than most humans. The projected side effects are all positive.”

“What exactly would those side effects be, Master Healer?”

“Because of his age the most obvious side effect may be a greater ability of the mind. As adults of all races age our bodies and minds begin to break down. As a child he is still making physical connections within his brain, children with greater magic can create more of these connections faster than those with lesser magic. This is the same strength that sees our lifespans lengthened. I would recommend having the tutors you previously spoke of ready for him and perhaps a library. He will quite quickly absorb all of the new information.”

“He already seems more mentally capable than most young children. If I wasn’t aware of how old he is, I might say he could pass for a child twice his age.”

“That might be the wild magic he has been fed for so many years at such a sensitive age. It might also be the abuse and neglect he suffered. It tends to make children seem older because they do not allow themselves to behave as children.”

Maybe she was right. My initial thoughts on Harry’s behavior were colored by the fact that I believed the horcrux might be affecting him more than it was. Now, with the knowledge that it was actually magic that was influencing his intelligence, I tried to think back on his behavior. I remember even comparing him to Hermione Granger, who still acted like a child even though she was several years more advanced in academic knowledge. But Hermione had come from a loving and supportive home and, as Master Erlast suggested, Harry might behave differently in such a home. If Harry was pushed to even higher achievements in academic intelligence, but had a safe and loving home, who would he become?

“Are we absolutely certain that no part of Tom Riddle is getting through to Harry? No memories? No information?”

“Oh, yes. Definitely. Master Erlast and I are in complete agreement that it is only magical energy that is crossing the barrier.”

“Okay, then I would want detailed projections of how you think this will go and I want to be as close to him as possible to be able to ease any worries he might have.”

“I’m afraid that last part just is not possible, Madam Figg. Entering the mines is significant, only kin of the clans can enter.”

“But then how would Harry be able to enter?”

“As we have made the young Potter kin of my kin, I have been able to claim emergency exceptions for the extremes of his health. The Goblin Nation abhors nothing more than a child abused. That he has been so heedlessly and wantonly caused great injury by a great many parties, we have been able to generate a significant amount of sympathy and assistance for the young orphan. Unfortunately, you will not be able to enter such sensitive areas of the Nation even should he be with you. It is against our ways.”

As Master Clinkscale had explained it, a goblin could claim a human as kin of their kin if they were related in someway to any of the humans that had been part of the clans in the way Master Rayner was. It was against the treaties for them to take children and keep them as their own, but kin of their kin was different in subtle ways. Harry was lucky in that one of his ancestors, a many times great grandmother that married into a line that eventually married into what became the Potters, was one of the orphaned children the Goblin Nation had brought into the clans. It was much like a very far removed cousin being granted the title of godparent, from what I understood, and it allowed that human the ability to access the benefits of the Goblin Nation more than any other human could. Including myself, apparently. Without violating any of the agreements that keep goblins from claiming humans as kin.

“I don’t know how well that will go Master Clinkscale,” I sighed. “By the time Harry is physically healthy for this he may still be suffering from the mental and emotional trauma of it all. He should have someone he knows and trusts with him, to help sooth him. Would you be permitted to enter with him?”

“Uh– well, possibly yes. There are a few factors at play, but it would be more likely that I would be allowed. This is all fairly political Madam Figg. But I would be willing to accompany him if it is something I can sway the council into allowing.”

“Good. Then you will have to get to know Harry more as well, so that the two of you are on even better terms by the time he should do this. I still want detailed projections of everything that will, or could, happen. But if you would be willing to comfort him, then that would be alright with me.”

After that the conversation wound down, Master Clinkscale gave me a few updates on our projects and Master Healer Erlast went over the regimen she wanted Harry to follow. It was late in the afternoon as Harry and I made our way back to Packer and Stowe to see Mr Stowe about something that would be squib friendly.

Marina, the great niece of Mr Stowe, was at the counter ringing up the purchase of an extremely tall man with a very thin mustache when we entered. She gave us a smile and we looked over some of the displays by the door as she finished up.

“Hello again! I’m so glad that you came back. I spent my break looking over things in our catalog with your needs in mind and I let my uncle know that there would be a customer coming in that would need to see him. I really appreciate your patience.”

“Of course, dear. Gerrard and I are just looking forward to having something suitable.”

“Right, right. Let me go let him know you’re here.”

A few minutes later the freckle faced young witch returned with a portly old man, his thinning hair still having a reddish hue to its gray.

“A pleasure to meet you, I am Marcellus Stowe. Thank you so much for waiting, my niece said that your needs were rather particular. Why don’t you tell me all about it?” He added a large smile at the end that implied nothing was too particular for him to find a way to put it in a trunk or tent.

“My nephew and I are going on a trip and we were thinking about using the rucksack that your niece was showing us, but I’m a squib and sometimes such magical habitats won’t agree with me.”

His bushy brows lifted in surprise, “A squib you say? And your nephew?” He looked down at the four year old as though he could discern whether or not he could use magic by staring through him.

“My nephew is just turned four Mr Stowe, I’m sure the Ministry wouldn’t approve of him attempting magics,” I said with a dull tone that I hoped would leave an impression.

“Yes, true, true. But,” he said giving Harry a kindly look, “you might need to take care of your aunt some day young man. Squibs don’t live as long as we do, you know. It would be much easier on her as well, most of our kitchens require the occupant to use at least an incendio for the oven.”

I had only been alive for a month and I was already tired of nonsense like this idiot was displaying. His niece was mirroring my wide eyes and staring at her uncle like he was the biggest uncouth moron of all time. He did just tell a four year old he was in charge of me and that I was going to die, that just screamed moronic.

I mentally added, Fix Squib Prejudices to my To Do list.

“I am aware, Mr Stowe, that many magical residences and wizarding spaces are not equipped properly for me. The question was whether or not you have anything that would be suitable for us to use during our trips.”

“Well,” he said with a huff, still looking at Harry, “I could probably cobble something together, but I would suggest trying to go the muggle way of things if you aren’t capable of being independent.” There was a small intake of air from behind him where his niece obviously couldn’t believe how ingrained the prejudice against squibs was in the magical world, even with her dear uncle.

I gave him a short look and a nod. “Thank you ever so much for your assistance,” I said with a saccharine smile.

I took up Harry’s hand and as the door closed behind us I could hear Marina shouting, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

Little Harry looked up at me as I laughed a bit at the situation. When I finally looked down at him he seemed to be gathering his courage.

“Um– uh Aunt S-Sarah? What just happened?”

It made me laugh even more, though hopefully Harry didn’t think I was laughing at him. Bending down a bit to speak to him at eye level, I gave his cheek a pat and smiled.

“Well, Mr Stowe thinks that people that don’t have enough magic to use a wand shouldn’t be using magical items. It’s a pretty common thought that people like me should just get out of the magical community and live in the muggle world completely with no magic at all.”

I would have gone on, but the door opened up and Marina came running out, almost slamming right into us.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for nearly running you over, but I’m also sorry for his behavior. Here take this, I don’t know if it will help as I’m not nearly as well trained as I want to be just now,” she handed me the Stowe and Packers catalog with all of her notes in it about what would be accessible for a squib. “And I wrote on the inside of the cover too. I went to school with her cousin, my uncle says she’s talented even if he says it begrudgingly.”

The note that she was pointing to was small in size, but monumental in help.

Avira Pillai
27 Horizant Alley

I thanked her and we made our way back into Horizant Alley to look for the shop.

After a bit of searching we found 28 Horizant Alley, a shop selling every type of sweet fried dough to have ever blessed the earth with its presence, but not the shop we had been advised to find. We ordered some chocolate filled bomboloni. The owner was working the counter and I was able to ask directions to number 27 as we paid.

“Oh, yeah. Avira’s place is a bit tucked up and away, but once you see it you’ll always remember it. Such a pretty blue color.”

The directions were easy to follow and we found number 27 Horizant Alley down a small alley that seemed to have a bit of slope to it. The deep blue reminded me of something, but it wasn’t until we reached the door and the sign shimmered into existence that I realized it.

I giggled at the joke and Harry gave me an odd look before I explained that it was based off a television show where the main character traveled around in a box that was bigger on the inside. Just like a wizard trunk.

Instead of bells when we entered the shop a wheezing “vworp-vworp” sound was heard. We were met by a thirty something witch in a blouse and jeans with an open robe that stopped at her ankles. She seemed happy to have customers, but even happier to see my barely restrained laughter. It gave the impression that she had a selective clientele that were familiar with the muggle world.

“Hello and welcome to my shop,” she said as she grasped her hands in front of her.

“I already love your shop, but I think I will have to catch my nephew up on the details.”

Her smile was bright and welcoming as she introduced herself and acknowledged that he might be a little young to be interested in such shows yet.

“Were you looking for anything in particular? An expanded purse or rucksack? I have some lovely pre fashioned hampers that are perfect to pack away foodstuffs for a day outside playing in the snow.”

“Oh, well we were looking for something to hold some food in it for snacks and such, but right now we’re more interested in perhaps a tent or trunk. Gerrard and I are taking a trip and wanted to get something comfortable. But we had some difficulties at Stowe and Packers,” I held up the catalog that Marina had given me and gestured to her note. “Marina recommended you after her uncle was rather frightful to us.”

“OoH?” Avira had looked happy to hear of our interest in a tent, but had slowly morphed into a look of worry. What could cause her competition to recommend her to a customer?

“Yes, he was uncomfortable in helping a squib acquire something with wizarding space and thought it best if I only use muggle conveniences until my nephew was well trained enough to assist me.” I covered his ears for a moment and whispered harshly to the witch, “And then he said that I would die soon so Gerrard needed to work hard to help me.”

“Huh,” she said in a bit of a shock as I took my hands of little ears. “Well, then. Wow.”

“Yes. Marina was most displeased with him and followed us out.”

“Well, I don’t have any problem helping you out. Actually, you might be better off with my designs as they are more tactile than what British wixen are used to having.”

“Taxtile?” asked a little voice.

I might have shown too much joy at the fact that not only had Harry talked in front of a stranger, but also that he had asked a question. It was a huge step forward. I didn’t have the time to analyze the reasons he might have started to loosen up enough to behave like that, but it was definitely something I would obsess over later.

“Tactile, Gerard. It means touch. Could you give us an example Madam Pillai?”

“Sure, but Avira is fine. Well, Gerrard have you ever looked at a muggle stove before?” Harry nodded while I restrained myself from grimacing over the Dursleys and why he had such familiarity with a stove. “If you wanted to light a fire on the stove you would just turn the knobs and there would be fire, right? Well, in most British designs for magical spaces they just assume everyone can use a wand. There’s maybe a nice spot for you to contain a fire spell in, but that doesn’t always have the control of a muggle stove. That’s why my kitchen sets have knobs. So your aunt could just turn the knob on the stove in one of my designs and it would light even though the fire itself would be magical. It’s almost all done with runes.”

“When you say ‘British designs’...”

“After I finished at Hogwarts in ‘67 I went to live with some cousins in Karnataka, India and studied with Masters Kavita Chaudhry and Veeru Devgan at the, well the literal translation is closest to Making a Room Large. It was a very specialized study, I was so lucky to get a placement with the guild. Maybe even luckier that my father’s family was fine with letting me live with them while I did.”

I gave her a small smile and a nod to have her continue when she paused, a little flustered at having spoken so bluntly.

“If you need to see my credentials and licensure for the British Ministry of Magic I have them on hand of course. But anyways,” she said with a shake of her head, “the British way of using a wand for every little thing isn’t actually all that common in the rest of the world. Most of Africa, for instance, since the largest school of magic there teaches without any kind of additional foci like a wand. Large swaths of Asia consider it rude to use a wand in certain areas of the home even though they work and train with wands. I was able to work with many different styles from around the world with the guild. Getting you set up with something comfortable will not be a problem.”

“Good. We don’t need much, but I would like something that we could continue to use as he gets older. It would be nice to go on these trips fairly often. I’m also worried about security and how well it would travel with us. Marina showed us a rucksack that held a small cottage design, but she was unsure if I would be able to work with the design.”

“That makes sense, the widening of the bag is usually triggered by a magical push from the user. It forces the bag to shape around the wixen. I also have umbrella tents that work on the same principle, the wixen would need to push a bit of magic into the handle of the umbrella while they open it up. It then triggers the magic of the tent to expand and form around them.”

“That’s an interesting idea, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Maybe I’m more ignorant about this than I had realized. I’ve never had the need to use one before.”

“That’s fine, why don’t we go into my backroom. I’ve got a nice place for us to sit and chat, would you like some tea?”

An hour later and we had hammered out many of the most important details. I absolutely loved her idea of making the outside look like a muggle suitcase on wheels. It would look completely natural and not need magic for me to enter it as it would already be wide enough. She promised to enchant the wheels, for which I was grateful, rolling luggage in the 80s was not good.

Harry had been drawn out to make additions of things he would want in the suitcase. I had a feeling it would be staying in his room when not being used on holidays and I wanted it to have a bit of whimsy for him. When he asked for a garden in front of the home that would be inside the suitcase, I was more surprised by the fact that it was possible than by the request. Avira said that it would only grow non magical varieties, but that was fine with us.

There were other little things like a larger than normal larder for storing food under stasis. A laundry that would work much like the ones I was used to without the need for me to use magic. Increased wards and protections both inside and out to help keep us safe. A library for all the books I would need to get Harry as the wild magic made more neural connections while feeding his protections. Little things.

When we walked out of the alleys it was late and we were both hungry. We took off the pieces of our disguises that would make us stick out and put them in my expanded bag. Then we walked the short way to a nearby fish and curry place. As we ate I thought about all the places I was going to be showing him and hoped that he would open up more and more as we went along.

30 January 1985

We were standing together in silence.

It wasn’t unusual as Harry was still a very quiet child, but we were both thinking deep thoughts.

The chatter in the background and the cold wind whipping at our faces, and we were looking back.

Back towards home.

Back across the water to the white cliffs.

And we just stood there.

Far too long.

I took a shuddering breath in and slowly let it out. Blinking, I reached into my bag and pulled out the camera.

“I know this is a big moment, and even if you don’t think you want a memento of this moment now, you might want one later. Let’s take your picture.”

The camera had been specially crafted to my specifications. I definitely could not fumble my way through using the 1980s version of a camera anymore than someone from the 1980s could competently use a camera from 1920. Instead this camera was more adapted for someone from my future time, while still looking like a pricey muggle camera from the eighties.

Still looking a bit shell shocked, Harry shuffled towards the railing as I moved back to take the picture. There were birds flying about and another boat going past that would make interesting features when the pictures were animated with magic, and behind it all off to one side were the cliffs of Dover. He looked a little pale, but he tried for a smile.

The very first picture taken of Harry’s first ever holiday.

It was my hope that this whole trip would give him some distance to what his life had been like before while allowing us more opportunities to bond.

I smiled at him and held out my hand. Grabbing the strap of my luggage I wheeled it behind us as we went further up to the front of the boat to watch France come into view.

We wouldn’t be staying in France for very long, though. We had the Princely Carriage safely tucked away and once we found a safe spot we would simply use the Carriage to take us to our first campground in Athens. The drive would be long at nearly ten hours, but it would be safe. After exploring Athens we would travel out to Egypt for a site based in Cairo. There is so much to do in Egypt that we wouldn’t just be sticking to a one place, but will move around and enjoy as much as possible. Then out to celebrate Carnival in Venice, while taking in all that Italy and the Adriatic had to offer. Spending several days in each area, it’s a marvelous way to see so many sights both magical and muggle.

The holiday would be all about Harry and helping him come out of his shell. Helping him explore the world around him, ask questions, and enjoy himself without worry. I knew that it would all take quite a bit of time, but I had nearly a month before I had to be back in Little Whinging looking like I had been confunded and obliviated. Hopefully, we could make a great deal of progress during that time.

14 February 1985

The clock radio was playing a local station that had Petunia Dursley tapping her toe as she artfully crafted her hair. Tonight was the Valentine’s excursion, a fine dining experience with dancing. She had bought the black silk dress with this very special night in mind. Vernon was going to whirl her around the dance floor and they would sip champagne in celebration of each other.

Petunia gave a little sigh as she opened her makeup bag, she never did like putting anything on until she had finished with her hair first. Men had it so easy, why Vernon would only be getting into his new suit twenty minutes before they had to leave for their reservations. As her hand went to her bag to sort things out she instead found an envelope.

She nearly had a heart attack as she recognized the heavy parchment and a wax seal as something she had seen so many times in the past.

Petunia took a shaky breath and with trembling hands broke the seal.

She read it through several times and even turned the letter around to see if something had been written on the back. She was dumbfounded. Petunia had thought she would have to deal with the boy and his abnormalities for years longer. But now she was free. All she had to do was convince the neighbors he had gone away for primary, an unusual thing to happen but it did happen. She didn’t necessarily want the neighbors to think that he was special enough to go to a school due to his intelligence, but if they were going to check then she could say it once or twice and everyone would forget he even existed.

He would be gone.

As Petunia’s heart slowed from its panicked racing she began to feel light headed, eventually she began to laugh.

He would be gone.

This holiday was only getting better.

When they went home he would be gone.

She carefully put the letter back into its envelope so that her husband could read it as well and then began applying her makeup.

This was the best Valentine’s Day she could have ever wanted.

Chapter 13: Transition, Greece

Chapter Text

3 February 1985

She always knew, it was a little scary. But maybe that was magic.

After we drove to Paris in the Carriage, I got to fly for the very first time. It was amazing. By the time we got to Greece it was late evening and we went to the campsite to set up. There were people doing magic all over the place. And some people had tents that looked just like houses! We had dinner at this pub, it was called The Lady of the Gleaming Eyes. I’d never had food like that before and Grandma Bella wanted us to each try a little of everything.

Food on a stick is the best kind of food.

The campsite was very big and I couldn’t imagine how it all kept hidden, but she said it was just like how the alleys were hidden. We wandered around for a while cause she wanted to make sure I could find my way back to our spot no matter what if I got lost in there. I think I could do it just fine.

So far we’ve seen lots of temples and amphitheaters and the Acropolis. Today we saw the changing of the guard in front of the Greek Parliament building. She told me all about how they wear a kind of kilt and have fluffy things on their shoes. I wasn’t going to laugh, but she thought I would. They do a big ceremony with people in real uniforms and the ones in the traditional ones. They did a funny marching walk too, like a dance. I want to see the guards at the palace when we go back home though, cause they have big tall fluffy hats.

My nightmares aren’t so good lately and every night I’ve had one. She always comes in to check on me when I do. It’s strange. And the first time it happened I wasn’t sure why she was there and I was scared and I didn’t know what to do. But after that it’s a sort of weird feeling of being scary and okay at the same time.

She holds me. And she runs her fingers through my hair. And she says it’s okay cause she’s there. Sometimes that makes me cry and I don’t know why. Cause it felt nice. Like something Aunt Petunia would do for Dudley.

I was worried she wouldn’t want me anymore, too much of a bother. But she keeps showing up every night. Course having nightmares every night isn’t so nice, but it’s nice that she’s there.

Tonight she brought me hot chocolate with whipped cream on it. She thought it might make me feel better after a scary dream. I don’t really remember the dreams, just that it’s frightening and I don’t like it.

The drink was nice too.

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

3 February 1985

The mug was warm in my hands, but I did not drink.

This was supposed to be a way to ease us into our new relationship. I purposely scheduled an easy beginning where we would only do the tourist things in and around Athens, then head out to the magical district inside Mt Olympus. Compared to the plans I had prepared for Egypt, our time in Athens would be slow and leisurely.

I sighed into my mug again. I had made hot chocolate tonight in the hopes that it would help. Maybe it did, or maybe I was just hoping that it did.

Since we made it out to Greece, Harry had not slept through a single night. He never cried out. He barely even made a sound. If it weren’t for Avira I would never have known how awful it was.

I had asked Avira to put wards throughout the trunk that would alert me if Harry were ever frightened. I had been planning for future events and possibilities, worrying over Harry being alone and afraid without a way to contact me. Perhaps taken by someone against his will and unable to call out. It was straight up paranoia. Except there really were people that would be out to get us.

She had made a small token that would warm and vibrate for as long as he was frightened. She had reasoned that everyone can have a fright some time, it doesn’t mean that something is necessarily wrong. If it buzzed for a longer, more noticeable amount of time then something might be wrong.

I think he must have been having the nightmares when he was at the house on Wisteria too.

I didn’t know how to help him.

I didn’t know what it was that was giving him these nightmares either. Was it the leech in his scar? The torment and abuse of the Dursleys? Was it my fault?

Harry never talked about what his dreams were and I thought pushing wasn’t the right course of action.

I had never been a parent.

I had barely even been an aunt.

What could I possibly know about raising children?

Was I really the best choice? Or was I just as arrogant as Albus, thinking that I knew best and my way was the only way.

I was falling apart over a mug of hot chocolate in the kitchen of a suitcase in a magical campsite in Greece.

How had my life even come to this?

The tears were flowing freely by the time the mug cooled in my hands.

I know the circ*mstances of how I became a parent are rather unique, but does every parent feel this way? Does every parent think that they can do nothing right? That they ruined something that was supposed to be wonderful for their child? It was only going to get more difficult, I think.

I washed my face and made my way to my bedroom thinking I might be able to get a few hours of sleep still.

I was just so bone wearyingly tired.

Every night after long days enjoying ourselves in the narrow winding streets and broken monuments of an ancient civilization we would come back to the suitcase. Sometimes we would putter around. Harry especially liked the flower and vegetable gardens that Avira had included for him. I would usually read or go through the correspondence sent through the post box. Then we would get ready for bed, I was reading him bedtime stories every night.

After an hour or two the token would heat and buzz as Harry became frightened in his sleep. I would go back in and wake him gently. After I managed to wake him I would usually hold him and card my fingers through his hair, rocking him as he cried. Tonight I brought him a cup of hot chocolate. I had made one for each of us before realizing it would be too difficult for me to drink and hold him at the same time.

He looked so small when he thanked me after I tucked him back in to bed, shining in the light of the orb I had given him. He called it his little moon.

I had wanted to be Auntie Bella, but with how awful Petunia was I had leaned him more and more towards Grandma. I only minded a little bit. I suppose I was technically old enough to have such a young grandson. It was only when we were in disguise that he would sometimes call me something else.

I think in the morning I will write to Clinkscale about those psychotherapy services that were in the book. We might both need to make use of them.

4 February 1985

I had to make sure that I was up before Harry as I had noticed he had trouble not making breakfast. It was like a knee jerk reaction to think that he would get in trouble if he didn’t make it. I had started doing this while we were still in Wisteria and since he was still having nightmares every night I thought it best to continue.

As I walked into the kitchen I was reminded that Avira Pillai was truly the best find ever.

The inside of the suitcase had been transformed into including a stunning thatch roofed cottage and large garden. There were several bedrooms, an office, play room, living room, and a kitchen. Everything was wonderfully laid out and used charged runes to work. This meant that I could touch a button or turn a knob and get things like lighting or the stove to work. Impressive as that was, the garden was what had me crowing over my latest contact.

There were roses growing around the door and up the walls of the cottage. A picture perfect garden filled with the colors of asters, bumble bee primrose, Russian sage, coneflowers, wild indigo, lady’s mantle, and more in the front of the cottage. A little stone table in the center with stone benches ringed around it, the prairie smoke surrounding them giving it all a dreamy feel. The ladder that pulled up and out of the suitcase so that one could enter had little halos of flowers wrapped around it so that one entered this little haven in the midst of an enchanting garden.

There was a small path that wound its way to the back garden where a good portion was devoted to vegetables. Harry could grow anything he liked, but Avira had already planted several funny varieties. She was probably hoping to give Harry a laugh, but he was taking it all very seriously.

The whole vegetable garden was made up of normal vegetables that had been bred into interesting colors. Things like black pumpkins called Dark Knight and Purple Sweet Bell Peppers. There were purple potatoes growing under ground next to Turkish Black carrots. The Purple Queen bush beans were hanging on a trellis next to the Ananas Noire tomatoes, which were actually colored in vivid greens and reds. It was basically a garden of all the fun and strange colored mundane foods she could find. I loved it.

The vegetable plots didn’t take up all of the area behind the house, however, and Avira had added a little delight for both of us. A pond! It had several different kinds of fish in it and a small boat that could float out into the middle and back on its own power. It was the perfect place to start getting Harry more comfortable with water before we went home to Little Whinging where we would be using the new pool to exercise.

As I pulled out the potions Harry and I needed to take every morning and set them next to our places at the table, I couldn’t help but think about all the changes happening back in Little Whinging and elsewhere. Avira had not initially been on the team to redo the houses, we hadn’t even known that she existed at that time. I had only mentioned the work she was doing on the suitcase in passing while in one of the meetings with Master Clinkscale. We were trying to come up with businesses that Harry could invest in that were on the magical side of the divide. I had thought we could invest in her business, get her better marketing and her business would easily outstrip her competition.

It turned out that Gringotts already had a file on Avira Pillai. She impressed them so much with her abilities that they had a file for potential recruitment, it was extremely detailed. She would have been at the top of her field if she wasn’t a muggleborn, given her astounding and creative abilities. Though she was actually more accurately a half blood, that didn’t really matter to most of Magical Britain.

Apparently, there was little use for her inside the nation itself and those who came to Gringotts to order services from the book wanted someone with a pureblood name and history to work on something so delicate if a goblin wasn’t doing the work. Her file had simply languished there. Luckily we knew who to market her services to and how to go about it and she was delighted to help. We added And Relative Dimension In Space to the new portfolio and got Avira on a Gringotts contract fairly quickly.

The amount of time she had spent, as well as the contacts that she had made, in other parts of the world was probably the most important part for trying to get me to trust her. She did not feel beholden to Albus in the slightest and he had never attempted to recruit her during her time at Hogwarts or after, as she graduated just before Albus really started recruiting in earnest. With Albus lurking around and worries about who to trust, the file on her helped soothe me.

Now under contract she became more active in our work, even learning our real names. She was already making the finishing touches on our designs for the Little Whinging houses when we found out what Lily had done.

It was all uncovered because we were required to have the permission of the actual legal owner of the Wisteria Walk house before we could begin making any magical changes to the property. It took us all by surprise when we found who legally owned the house. The owner, as it turned out, was Harry Potter.

It was mostly chance and luck that helped to reveal what had happened. We did a full audit on the Estates for Harry to make sure we weren’t missing anything while simultaneously looking into the ownership of the house. It was probably more obvious because we were doing them side by side.

The audit was not anything against Clinkscale or the goblins in general, rather it was based on the knowledge that others had access to Harry’s key. It is common knowledge that one should always be extremely careful with their Gringotts vault key as it is direct access for the vault in almost all cases. Losing your key meant that the thief could legitimately enter your vault. There are special exceptions where other methods such as blood or magic can be used for the vault protections or in the case of an orphaned minor where vaults can be locked even if someone has a key.

Anyone with the key of a trust vault can withdraw from it as they are the presumed guardian of the child unless proven otherwise. Any other vaults are locked beyond the trust key at the moment of physical death. Those major vaults don’t always have clauses to lock out minor children, but when they do the standard is for there to be a trust vault. Until they reach their majority these are the usual protocols followed. There is a three day waiting period to make sure the alleged deceased won't return to life through any means or can prove themselves to be a part of one or more undead groups. Should this period expire any heir by magic, blood, or will can take claim of the vaults and have new keys created.

Trust vaults can have many different rules around them. For instance, in the case of Harry Potter, his trust vault will always equal £100,000 or 20,000 Galleons. It will automatically have a deposit from the main family vault on the first of the month with that exact amount, no matter how much or how little is in the vault. Well, not vault. It’s actually called a safe because it will only hold the trustee’s monetary funds. But almost no one would refer to any space below the bank as anything but a vault.

The moment that both parents had died the major Potter vaults immediately locked themselves. The trust vault for their only heir, who was at the time a minor of one years old, was the only vault that could be entered by anyone. Albus had the key to the trust vault. He used it to clear out the vault in the first week of November. The next month he removed a startlingly exact number of galleons, sickles, and knuts. No other withdrawals had ever been made. Combined these withdrawals totaled the exact amount paid for the house on Wisteria Walk not a knut more.

The conversation with Clinkscale about the precise amount Albus had taken left my head spinning.

All the vaults had been locked down, including the trust vault, when it became obvious that the will would remain sealed and the chosen godparents would not be able to take care of the last Potter. It was an unusual case and unusual decisions had to be made because of that by Gringotts. The vaults would still run in accordance with the other rules imposed on them, the major vaults receiving monies from investments and the trust vault always being at the right amount. But they would only open the trust vault if Harry Potter came in himself.

Did Albus know he wouldn’t be able to get any more money out for himself? Or was he just not going to try for it in the first place? Was it acceptable to buy a house so a spy could keep watch and sound alarms near to the child? Wasn’t that what a trust vault was for? To pay for things the child needed when his parents couldn’t? What would Lily and James say? If clothes were bought from money in the trust would that be alright? What’s the difference in purchasing a house?

My own money was dwindling swiftly with everything that we needed for our safety and comfort. Depending on how the next stages of our plans moved, I might start to be in dire straits trying to be a parent without touching Harry’s funds. I didn’t want to even be near the line that Albus might have crossed. I had decided that anything that was solely for Harry and would never be used by anyone else would be paid for by the trust and that I would take care of the rest. Things like his education would be covered by the trust, but something like that Princely Carriage was definitely coming from my vault. And it set me back a great enough deal that we would need to be even more frugal as things went on.

During the war I would be given a budget to buy materials or ready made objects to help us. When Lily and I were looking into creating something that could recognize people even if they were polyjuiced, I was given money for materials and books. Now I was paying for the Fabulousa charms and the safer transport of the Carriage from my own account.

When Clinkscale and his team followed the money trail from the vault to the house things got even more interesting.

Towards the later end of the war, before she went so deeply into hiding, Lily and I had been working to set up safe houses in muggle ways that the Death Eaters would be so unfamiliar with that they would never be able to follow it. In other words, Lily and I spent some time laundering money and buying properties under shell companies. I was able to recognize a business or two that were fronts with just PO Boxes and a good deal of faked background. After that the goblins unraveled the rest.

The safe houses, as well as all of the other things, were now considered a part of the ArchAngel investments and the goblins were cleaning everything up. Going through the audits with an even finer toothed comb than they had been, it became more obvious that Lily had been using the vast Potter fortune to set up these safe havens. She must have told Albus about it as he used the exact same methods and businesses, as though he were following line by line instructions on a how-to that only she could have made.

In effect, Harry’s mother was protecting him again with this vast safety net. There were homes all over Europe, Oceania, and the Americas for him to hide away in or use as he saw fit. All bought with Potter money through Lily’s methods.

Avira and a few of Master Rayner’s assistants were going through every single space and making them safe as well as habitable. Since Harry’s vault was refilled every month with £100,000 or 20,000 Galleons, when I came in his trust was at £3.6 million or 720,000 Galleons after growing for three years. The remodeling of spaces like this didn’t require spending a great deal, for which I was grateful, it would hardly put a dent in the money that would help me to take care of Harry.

Only Harry.

Though doing that was much more difficult than it first appeared.

Lily had safeguarded these homes herself, making them perfect places to escape from harm. During the war the light side found itself under constant threat, even the most protected homes could fall if enough powerful Death Eaters tried. There had been a runesmith that created the contraption of the Cabinet when too many people died in these raids because the floo was closed off and anti-disapparition wards were up.

To a magical society, so used to being able to go anywhere within the range of the floo or their apparition ability, the Vanishing Cabinet would not have been of much interest. Except that it could get an entire family, children and elderly included, out of the stationary place that the Death Eaters had trapped them. Usually, without the Death Eaters being the wiser that their prey had vanished until they finally made it into the home.

The original intent was for the two houses on Little Whinging to have Vanishing Cabinets.

Taking into account the curvature of the earth the Vanishing Cabinets have a range as far as 322 km, but it is not recommended to go further than 245 km so as to not strain the magic. Straining the magic for a Vanishing Cabinet means that you get stuck in the in between nothingness and may never come out ever again. These Cabinets allow people to go to a single point from a single point without regard for any wards that may have been put around either property. The distance between Privet Drive and Wisteria Walk is hardly much of a stretch, the wards and the potential spies would never know that we were hopping between the properties.

With Lily’s help each house would have its own escape route through a separate Cabinet. The one in Privet Drive would go to London and the one in Wisteria Walk would go to Le Touquet, France. With the addition of all of these new properties, I had to order more specialty Vanishing Cabinets to be built so that we could hop between them. This would help us to spread out where we were seen, even in disguise, and give us a way out that would be confusing for anyone trying to follow us. Even though the Princely Carriage could be easily moved around, we did still have to go outside to use it. The Cabinets didn’t have that issue and so would make a good way to confuse the enemy. In addition each of the Cabinets had special runes added to allow me to self destruct them should we ever have the need.

But there was the problem. The houses and everything being “upgraded” would improve the resale value for Harry, but it wouldn’t be for him alone. He would not live alone. He would not use the Cabinets alone. It was more difficult to find the line with this problem than I had originally thought. I worried it would only get more difficult as the year progressed and our plans really started working.

In order to use all of these properties Master Clinkscale came up with the crafty scheme of having Harry rent his own properties from himself. He paid an extremely low rate each month to rent the properties from various management companies and then the money was eventually redeposited in his own vaults. As long as we could show that he was not taking up ownership of them or living in them full time, it would technically be within the limitations and restrictions set by law for these properties which were magical in nature even though they were in muggle areas. The hoops we had to jump through even to get them considered part of the magical portfolio were honestly ridiculous.

“Hello,” said a sleepy little boy, dragging me away from my cloudy thoughts.

“Good morning Harry, have your first two potions and I’ll get you some juice to drink.” Some of those potions tasted awful, but through a little trial and error we found that mango juice of all things helps with the taste the most.

After breakfast, and many potions drunk by both of us, we did a light bit of exercise before heading out for our day. The National Library awaited us today, I was sure it would be interesting to see the magical side of the National Library.

6 February 1985

Mount Olympus had been so incredible that it practically forced Harry and I to relax in each other’s company. It had been an absolute marvel. There were shops and stalls, museums and historical sites. I met a faun!

The fauns, I learned, had hidden themselves away almost entirely into the residential forest districts inside Mount Olympus when things had started to go downhill for the Roman Empire. There were apparently a large number of Beings and Creatures inside Mount Olympus after the fall. This was possibly due to the rise in extensive missionary activity which condemned anything magical. Over the many years of the Dark Ages the persecution and hunting of them grew ever worse until these Olympians had eventually sought shelter in one of the most well protected magical communities in the area.

A safe haven for them all could be found in the Olympus Range. It is a common misconception in Britain and elsewhere that it is just a single peak that the Olympian community lives in, rather it is the whole range and this interior magical space is called Mount Olympus.

The faun we met was a bookseller with a lovely shop in Το Τετράγωνο Φλάουτο and pointed us to all kinds of wonderful histories on magical Beings and Creatures for the history of the Roman Empire and afterward. This was the kind of well rounded history I was hoping Harry would be able to learn. Not everything was about the Goblin Wars after all.

I was even able to get some very interesting books about different sights for various family members. I would have to give the books to them randomly over the year in order to not give away this secret trip, but I knew they would love their gifts.

For every day of the trip, and only because it was a trip, Harry had two daily allowances that were pulled from his Gringotts vault in local currency by the special wallet Clinkscale had given us. One of the allowances was to spend on educational things that he was interested in, such as books or something like the maps and models we had seen of ancient Greece. The second allowance was for whatever fun or interesting things he wanted, toys or trinkets. There was a third allowance he didn’t know about as I thought he should be able to get things that were clothing at the various places we were going, but didn’t want to encourage him to buy clothes for himself that he might not wear later. Better to get little mementos that could sit on a shelf with the allowance he knew about, than a shirt that would just sit in a storage box when he out grew it.

Thankful that I had included Harry in learning all of those languages from Euro-Glyph, I purchased a veritable mountain of books that would start to fill the suitcase library from Mr Ennius. We didn’t need to worry about learning new languages in order to read these books as we had already learned them. Harry picked out a few with his allowance and we profusely thanked the kind bookseller. I thought I might reach out to him again if he keeps such a well stocked store, it would be good for both of us to be more well rounded.

The plan, after staying a whole day in Mount Olympus, was to catch a Pegasus Race before heading to Egypt.

There are many different varieties of winged horses found all over the world, though the famous Newt Scamander only listed a few of the most common in his book. The races are named after the famous winged horse Pegasus. Who was himself a crossbreed of three to five different European and Mediterranean types and, surprisingly, the prized stallion of a Ghana of Wagadu. On top of the raceway’s entrance was a large animated bronze sculpture of the famous horse. When the bronze Pegasus at the entrance stomped his hooves there were little sparks of lightning with accompanying thunder sounds.

I decided it would be better to go to the little museum and gift shop attached to the raceway before trying to find our seats.

“Alright, Hadrian,” I said when we arrived, “You can pick out at least two things from the shop, but if they don’t cost overly much you can have more than that. I’m going to get us a little program while you look.”

Harry nodded with a smile and wandered over towards some small, bright colored winged horses that were making little circles near the entrance. He had been doing so much better since our tours of Olympus yesterday. There was less nervous energy around him at all times and he was more confident when he pointed out things that he wanted to see or do. That one had caused some problems. It had become clear that he had the same issue pointing out that he wanted to do something or stay somewhere longer as he did in the simple task of picking out an ice cream when we were at Fortescue's. But with encouragement every day to pick out at least two items, one educational and one for fun, I thought it was getting better.

The programs I bought us listed the names of the winged horses and their jockeys as well as any wins that they had to date. The Pegasus Races go year round as it is both a very tourist thing to do as well as a traditional Olympian game. Over the years they have added different types of courses, some with insane amounts of obstacles or ones where they fight off creatures or “enemies” as they try to cross the finish line. Today we were just seeing a basic course run, though it would be in the air and it was longer than the four thousand meters of the Royal Ascot. I imagine the stadium was similar to how things would be set up for the World Quidditch Cups. Maybe I should take Harry to one of those.

“Nana Flora?” said a tiny voice to my left.

My eyebrow was arching already at the tone. I knew that tone, though I had never heard it from Harry Potter before. It was the “I really want something but you aren’t going to want to give it to me so I will be especially adorable” tone. I almost didn’t turn to look at him as I was worried about my response to what was sure to be large, innocent eyes pleading with me for something.

When I did turn, it was to see a bashful four year old boy rocking back and forth on his heels as he held his hands behind his back.

“Yes, Hadrian?” He still didn’t look up at me when I very carefully answered him. Was this the part where pushing boundaries started? From behind his back the little boy pulled out a smaller version of the Pegasus sculpture we had seen at the entrance. The winged horse reared up and stomped his hooves to make little sparks appear before he let out a little whicker.

“Does this count as educational or fun?” It was a good point. The winged horse sculpture was both a toy like object and an historical model, but given the price slip that I could see I rather thought he wanted to know if it was both so that he could afford it with today’s allowance.

“Oh,” I said with a dramatic sigh and a draw of my brow. I was hamming it up a little to make sure that he would feel encouraged to ask for things and to give me reasons for him to get what he wanted. “That’s a good question Hadrian. What do you think it is?”

“Well.. it’s an important figure in history. Just like that little statue we got at the National Library of Falco Aesalon that changes into his falcon animagus. But it’s also more fun like the things we got at Monastiraki.”

“That makes it sound like it is both educational and fun.”

“Um– Maybe?”

“Okay. You can use both allowances to purchase this one thing.” The way his face lit up at that was amazing, he even gave a little bounce as we walked over to pay. I could have dragged it out a little more so that he would talk about how he wanted it and what that meant, but I didn’t want to discourage him. The next time, if everything was tracking properly, I would probably give him a little push to tell me more.

On our way to our seats we grabbed some drinks and more dolmades, which we had both loved during our time in Athens, as well as some delicious koupes. There were thousands and thousands of seats in the stadium which ringed around a mid air track.

The winged horses flew up from a stable door dozens of meters below the seating and then would immediately start the race around the midair course. There were different parts of the course that would challenge each of the winged horses and, just like non magical horses, some would do better in different areas over others. The track had the normal curves and straights of an oblong course, but it also had an up hill and a down hill in which the air pressure and winds were magically manipulated to provide a challenge or change the pace.

We picked out our favorite for the race, Aethon, and cheered for them with wild abandon. The announcer could be heard coming from our seats, I suspected some sort of magical speaker embedded in them, and we followed along as the winged horses flew.

“And for our morning races we have the classic run. They’re all in and set for the stables. There’s the signal. Corydon flies out and is on the outside, first out, jumps really well as they race through the first furlong. Adrastos towards the inside is holding his position with Costa. Eniryt crosses behind the field as they settle down in the early stages.”

Great winged horses, most the size of elephants, raced along the first part of the massive course. The omnioculars we had brought with us for the trip helped us see as they swiftly flew by in a rushing of wings and strength.

“So Costa and also moving forward Oreste who has the early lead and it’s Oreste who has the early lead. Stable companion Odessa and Cadmus in the blue with Farris out wider as Costa and Adrastos just track the leaders early on.”

We were cheering on Aethon who was in the middle of the pack, yelling along with all of the others in the stadium. Two voices in a crowd of thousands, noise makers and music playing.

“Corydon is just behind the speeding company with Linus in the purple and Yolanda in the hoops with the noseband. The white and red on the inside is Galatea and up on the outside Lycoris is the horse making ground in white and blue.”

The middle of the oblong course is empty except for the announcers and officials far below watching as the race continues. To keep the great creatures on track there are brightly colored rails, this is considered the inside of the track. Closer to the side of the crowds of fans are small sparkling spells that make sure the jockeys know not to cross, this is the outside of the track. As the great black and grey horse Lycoris made his way around we could see the white and blue of his streamers attached just above the hooves on the hind legs.

“Ebonique Echo gets in front of Eniryt. Last year’s winner, well back on the outside of Rasmus, is Aethon, who was the market mover during the course of the last few days, was just resting along for a few strides.”

Our Aethon got a mention, sending Harry and I into further fits of cheers. We hadn’t known that he was doing great in the races before when we picked him and hoped he would have a great day again while we cheered.

“So, getting now into their formation, as they make their way up the straight and there’s still a long way to go.

“Farris in the yellow colors has the lead from Oreste with Cadmus in blue racing in third. Adrastos is fourth with Lycoris racing in fifth place, just ahead of Odessa. Didn’t do Costa any great favors there, he was a little short of room.”

As the winged horses grouped together they crowded each other a bit. Costa had been angled out of the lead of the pack by the other horses. Our poor Aethon was still a bit behind, but we were sure he would be fine. We took a moment to get another drink, our throats already sore from yelling.

“Yolanda races about a seventh place at this stage with Linus towards the outside in eighth. Ebonique Echo on the outside of Galatea, Corydon midfield in the check colors of yellow and black, just ahead of Pirro, Rasmus on the rails in red and white for Eniryt in the gray jacket on the outside of Adrastos. And Aethon – and Farris has found a new trick.”

There was an almost physical startle that moved through the crowd before the laughing began. The track was very wide, the rails and sparks were there for guidelines, there was very little likelihood that a horse would move so far out as to near the sparks. This was because it was considered better to be on the inside and lean into the track for a good portion of the course.

But dear Farris had drifted out of the pack as the track began to bend round again.

“His trick is to run off on the bend, and having consented to race and gone forward he feels that after half a mile he’s done enough. Farris is heading for entrance arch one at the moment and he might find one of the picnic spaces, but I don’t think he’ll find the winning post as out in front is Oreste.

“Oreste then handed the lead by Farris who has got back in touch with the field, but has gone from first to last in the space of a couple furlongs.”

The jockey for Farris had gotten him under better control and moved him back towards the pack, riding at break neck speed that should surely be impossible for the jockey to stay attached.

“Now Oreste with Cadmus in the blue colors and up on the outside Lycoris, Adrastos racing in fourth place in the check colors as they begin to run the down hill. Linus comes in next with Costa, then Corydon who’s racing about seventh or eighth for jockey Diego Raya on the inside of Galatea, trained by Diego’s father.

“And then Ebonique Echo out with Eniryt, Rasmus, little bit of a shuffle up as they just crossed the rise there with Zephyra. And still towards the back is Farris as they make their way down hill.”

The omnioculars helped us keep track of all the winged horses by labeling them as we looked through. They also showed the effects and changes of the air pressure and it’s currents at the places marked as either up or down hill. It was supposedly easier for most horses to ride the down hill portion, the problem was more about control. If they went too fast at the down hill, they could lose the lead as the track straightened out.

“So we’re now entering the final mile of the contest and out in the lead Oreste still shows the way.

“Well bunched field with Cadmus, Lycoris, and Adrastos for the second, third, and fourth. Linus caught on heels there, gave Costa a bump. Costa hasn’t had a lot of luck actually in this race so far. Yolanda’s up the running rails with Corydon, and Ebonique Echo as the pace just steady as we’re at the foot of the hill. Galatea, Rasmus, Eniryt comes next. Then Pirro, Zephyra on the rails. Aethon has now got passed round about three of them. They include Farris who’s back in touch with the field, but surely has compromised his chances.”

Feeling a bit bad for Farris, we both looked at each other and decided that we could cheer for more than one of the competitors. So we cheered on both Aethon and Farris as they continued down the track.

“A nearly fifteen second furlong there as wily jockey Nic Grippa now just begins to extend on, has the lead from Oreste, Adrastos, and Lycoris. Yolanda still lobbing along with Odessa, they’ve never been too far away, likewise Linus.”

The crowd was getting louder and louder as the winged horses got closer and closer to the straight which would lead them to the finish line. I excused all manner and propriety in order to bodily lift little Harry so that he could stand on his stadium seat and shout as loud as he could.

“Diego will just need to try to angle off the rails. Corydon in check colors for the first time leaves the fence on the outside of Yolanda. Costa furiously ridden, Eniryt is creeping closer. So is Ebonique Echo, though he’s going to be needing luck for a few.

“There’s Rasmus, Aethon trying to circle the field now as they continue their progress with the worst of the climb behind them and begin to swing for home in the Pegasus Races. Out in the lead, Oreste. Lycoris in second place, then Linus around the outside. Adrastos, Odessa, Cadmus, dropping back very quickly causing traffic problems for a few.”

They’d overcrowded themselves in the pack and the horses’ wings were not getting enough room. Some were dropping back to make room, but it caused problems for those behind them. The crowd was becoming crazed and the announcer spoke faster.

“Yolanda then Corydon as they make the corner. Ebonique Echo, Odessa trapping strongly just behind the leaders as they straighten and now out in front heading for home it’s still Oreste.

“Yolanda switches out. Ebonique Echo, Corydon, no luck for Rasmus who’s had to change course markedly. Aethon right around the outside, trying to stay on it. It’s Yolanda who’s hit the front.”

Someone in the audience has let off little sparks in the colors of their competing horse and others follow. Somehow the sound in the stadium becomes ever louder. How they keep the rest of all Olympus from hearing it, even with magic, I’ve no idea.

“Corydon, Aethon, Zephyra down the outside.

“Inside the last, it’s Yolanda bearing down the leader, Corydon, Aethon still stays off with Zephyr.

“A real battle on the inside with Yolanda, Corydon,” the announcer gets even faster and gets louder, “Yolanda is finding more. AND YOLANDA IS THE WINNER followed by Corydon, Aethon, and Zephyra.”

Wands went off with bangs. It rained silver sparkles throughout the whole of the stadium. Everyone cheered.

Harry, still standing on his stadium seat, leapt bodily at me like a little monkey and screamed, “THAT WAS SO AWESOME!”

I laughed as I held him close.

It was early afternoon by the time we made our way from the Pegasus Races to the docks inside Mount Olympus. We left for Cairo on the magical airship The White Swan which would travel south, stopping at many of the larger magical districts. The rigid airship design was interesting, but the magic layered into it was awe inspiring. Even someone like me could see the sparkling of magic along her lines. When we were up high enough the ship deployed clouds in addition to the invisibility and masking spells that were said to be soaked into every nut and bolt.

The Princely Carriage was very useful, but it couldn’t go over water. With the use of these tour airships we could comfortably get between destinations and then use the Carriage while we were there. For instance we were going to be traveling all over Egypt before meeting back up with another rigid airship to get to the magical districts in the Adriatic, it was the perfect way to make use of our magical conveyances.

Both of us were tired from our day already, but I had nothing planned except for us to get to our first camp in a magical district of Cairo. Harry slept most of the traveling away, sprawled out across the seats, and then I put him to bed as soon as the suitcase was set up at our camp in Cairo. We only woke up late in the evening for a meal at a nearby restaurant and some quiet time to recover whatever hearing loss we might have incurred from our fun earlier in the day.

It wasn’t until late that night, our first in Cairo, that things started to twist for us. Well, perhaps there had been turns before. Finding out just how far Lily had taken our operation with the money laundering for safe houses, that was quite a turn. But no this– this was a twist.

The family tree that I had asked to be made for Harry was finished right on time. Twelve days from the letting of blood and magic, just as promised. All I had wanted was a family tree with several generations and embellishments of a stag and doe that were animated and colored like a patronus.

Instead it was a twist.

Master Clinkscale hadn’t sent me the tree itself as it was to big to pass through my post box. Such a marvel, this little box could get inanimate and nonliving objects to me practically anywhere in the world. But it did have a size limit and something that was four meters long was too much for it. Instead he sent me a detailed letter about the tree and all of the things he and the others back in Gringotts were running around doing in light of this information. He mentioned it being the most interesting thing to happen to the Nation’s archives in over a hundred years. He called it havoc, but it seemed like he might be having fun.

I immediately sent off a message with some ideas for him that had been on the backburner with nowhere to go. Maybe Johnny was right, I should be called Hells Bells.

Chapter 14: Hunger, Cairo

Chapter Text

7 February 1985

I woke up a little earlier than normal and rushed to get our breakfast and potions ready as I marveled at the full night of sleep. I had not been awoken just after getting to bed last night and that was a great sign. Harry had been doing better and better, but I worried that he would backslide with the move to a new place. Though I suppose as long as we are in the trunk we are still in similar enough surroundings.

Last night we had dinner at a restaurant within the magical area where we camped. The food was divine, but we were exhausted and had another early day ahead. It wasn’t until the little one was asleep, a moon on one side of him and a little winged horse statue on the other, that I read over my correspondence. I had complete confidence in the goblins of Gringotts and was sure Master Clinkscale could handle things.

It was strange how much more I felt like me rather than one or the other person anymore, time was allowing me to knit my two lives together. My younger self had read several fanfictions that had similar things happen within Harry’s family tree. Given what my older self had known, however, I had found all those ideas too far fetched to consider. The person I had become, though, still made a small list of notions and solutions anyway with all of the other plans.

Last night I had passed on some of these ideas and made suggestions in my letter to Clinkscale. He would let me know how plausible they were, perhaps expand on them, before we moved forward with this twist. In some ways it made things easier, in other ways things became much more complicated. I did suggest that when we returned Harry should have a full tapestry. I had no doubt that he and the other clans would agree. Especially after all the havoc little Harry was causing the archives.

We had stumbled into the Carriage for our early morning ride out to the Plateau where we would meet our guide. It was in the very early morning light we marveled at the sites of one of the seven wonders of the known world on the Giza Plateau. One of the oldest of those seven wonders to still stand.

The Giza pyramid complex, or the Giza necropolis, is located on the Giza Plateau a short drive from our campsite in Cairo. This is where the famed Great Pyramid of Giza is located with the Pyramid of Khafre, the Pyramid of Menkaure, and the Great Sphinx of Giza. They all date back to the fourth dynasty in the old kingdom of ancient Egypt, around 2600 BC.

We would also be seeing the Valley Temples and the Queens’ Pyramids before moving on to Memphis to see the ancient capital of Egypt. The Giza necropolis is large and awe inspiring, but unlike other places Harry and I would visit it is rather plain. In Memphis and Saqqara, however, there are many hieroglyphs.

Arriving at the Giza complex the first thing that hit both of us was just how tall the pyramids are, the reality of it greater than it had been when we had read facts on them earlier. These mountains of stone, standing more than 140 meters high, were simply enormous. The sides were not a smooth stone, a misconception I had that was probably brought on by many books showing smooth sided pyramids, instead the outer layer consisted of steps. There had originally been a smooth limestone over them, but it had worn away in the thousands of years since it was built.

A small tour had been arranged for us on camel and it had Harry laughing. Our guide Balluza was great. Not only was he informative and super entertaining, but he also seemed to fancy himself a photographer which meant that there were pictures with me in them as well.

I took so many pictures. I often forgot that it was film in the camera, but a requirement when I ordered its construction was that it would not run out of film and I would never need to put more in. I did have to take it out and have it developed, but I figured I could handle that task. While there was a way to make the camera more discreet, I allowed Balluza to use it in order to have more pictures that included both Harry and myself. I figured that he would just assume it was an advanced and expensive camera and didn’t worry about the magic.

It had often been cloudy and cool in Greece, but here we were in high temperatures under clear skies. The rose granite of the funerary temple ruins was beautiful in the plays of light and shadow around the temple, the heat making the stone warm. Almost all the stones had been quarried in Aswan, a place that we would be visiting later in our trip. That's over 500 miles away!

The temple predates even the dynastic Egyptians it is so old, but no records indicate that there was any real use of magic involved in the building of it. In fact the tour books we had from the magical side informed us that many of the ancient Egyptian cultures preferred to keep most magic strictly away from the building of these places as it was seen as an insult to their gods.

I took wonderful pictures of Harry in front of the Sphinx. I am certain that he will never meet one in a maze in his whole life. I’m not ruling out meeting one entirely though, he is still Harry Potter. Weird things happen to and around this kid, even when Albus isn’t involved.

After exploring pyramids and temples on the Plateau we said goodbye to Balluza and got into the Carriage to see the Egyptian Museum. Learning more about King Tutankhamen than I had previously, I also found out that people used to eat mummies. Who would do that?

There was an area adjacent to the muggle museum that our guide book suggested. It was basically a museum to the magic of Egypt. Here we learned how the way magic was used evolved through millennia. Many idols and stones were infused with magics and worn on the person for protection, or healing, or even fertility. Since in those times there was no separation between those who had a great deal of magic and those that didn’t, these items were gifted or sold to people without worry about an individual's abilities in magic.

Continuing through the museum we learned more about why none of the buildings, temples, pyramids, etc were built with the help of magic. It was because the priests believed that the power of their deity was already present and to invoke such magics was an insult against them. The priests focused their magics instead on keeping the temples and sanctuaries pure, they conducted rituals for the people, and they performed the festival ceremonies for the greater public.

Next to a small display of an ancient rural village was more on what Healers would have been doing during that time.

“Doctors, even in rural villages, were expensive and so people often sought medical assistance from someone who might have once worked with a doctor or had acquired some medical knowledge in some other way. These individuals seem to have regularly set broken bones or prescribed herbal remedies but would not have been thought authorized to invoke a spell for healing. That would have been the official view on the subject, however; it seems a number of people who were not considered doctors still practiced medicine of a sort through magical means.” (citation)

Before we left to see the sites in Memphis and Saqqara, we watched a lesson in making papyrus paper. The instructor was a large man who spoke, of all things, American English. Harry and I had gone back and forth with our disguises today, between English and Italian usually, but we had not expected someone to speak English with such a heavy American accent when we signed up for the presentation.

Abdul introduced himself before sitting behind his worktable and arranging his tools. The long, thin wooden table held plant matter which was to be expected. There was also a press, which made sense to me. But there were little things like the hammer and the bowls that were set into the table that I didn’t understand in this context right away.

“So this is the plant called papyrus,” he said it slowly, “P-A-P-Y-R-U-S.” He held in front of him a long narrow tube, a reed. “Notice, papyrus is not a cylinder shaft like many reeds. Instead it is a triangle. The papyrus is an aquatic plant that grows along both sides of the Nile River and is associated with the mythology of ancient Egyptians.” Abdul and his helpers passed along cut pieces of the papyrus so that we could see the reed up close.

“So to make the paper we have to cut the right length from the intact reed and then cut off the cover,” he brought a sharp knife down the length of the papyrus. “This part,” he gestured to the outer casing, “was once used to make the shoes and baskets. This part,” he held up the white papyrus, “is what we make the paper from. But you see how it is, the fibers have too much water and sugar to be paper just yet. So we take the rolling pin and the hammer to it. Once it is compressed into this flat strip, we have reduced the water that separates the fibers. Now we must take care of the sugar, so we put it in here for six to twelve days.” He put the strip into one of the bowls on the table.

“If we want a light color papyrus paper we do six days, for the dark brown we leave it for twelve days. After that time the ancient people doing this would lay the strips of cured papyrus between two animal skins. Today we use thick, tough carpet.” Abdul began taking strips of cured, white papyrus out of the bowl and laying it in a kind of woven pattern on top of a square of carpet. Then he put another square on top of the woven papyrus, “We take this finished process and press it here.” He placed the carpeted papyrus in the large metal press. “We leave it here for six days. Because of the sugars still in the papyrus, this allows the strips to blend together until finally,” he reached below the table and pulled out a sheet of papyrus, “we have the papyrus.”

He held it in front of a small projector light, “If you look you can see the horizontal and vertical lines that made up this sheet from earlier cuts of papyrus strips. After the papyrus became a sheet it was polished with a rock to make it flat and smooth for writing on.”

Sheets of the finished paper began to make their way around the little group. Harry and I were paying avid attention as Abdul spoke, pulling down a screen behind him. The lights dimmed and projected on the screen was an ancient scene.

“The papyrus is associated with one of the most central mythic cycles in the Ancient Egyptian religion. After Seth murdered Osiris and usurped his throne, the goddess Isis took her infant son to the papyrus thickets of the north to hide him away. You see Osiris was her husband, and her brother Seth would no doubt murder his nephew as well.” There was a click and a new scene was lit across the wall.

“It was here, concealed amongst the swaying reeds whose sounds soothed him and covered his cries, that Horus grew to manhood. Horus was protected and nursed by the goddess Hathor. This goddess is symbolizes rebirth and resurrection in the celestial realm and is often shown in the form of a cow emerging from the papyrus thicket.” There was another click and a new scene was shown of people holding what looked like the papyrus plant.

“Hathor was worshiped in the ritual of the Shaking of the Papyrus. In its purest form the actual stalks of the papyrus were shaken, but Hathor’s primary cult instruments were the sistrum and manet which were rattled to create a rustling sound and evoke the mythical environment.” The next image had a man with the head of a hawk.

“When Horus grew old enough he fought his uncle Seth for the throne. It was a long drawn out battle for dominance that led to many contests, these were judged by the Great Ennead, before Horus was eventually able to claim his throne as ruler of Egypt. This is why the pharaohs are associated with Horus. This mythic cycle is one of the few completely intact papyrus myths ever found. Which is another reason why the story is so important today.”

It was a fascinating demonstration. The reasoning for the use of parchment in our magical society was reinforced throughout the making of the papyrus. Parchment, and things like quills, can be manufactured in great quantities cheaply because of duplication magics. This is because parchment is a single hide of an animal, anything that is a simple single thing will be much easier to duplicate. Quills, similarly, are a single feather from a single animal.

Modern paper is made from the broken down remains of several trees, after they have been chemically altered, sometimes with additions like cloth. Much too complicated to mass produce. The same could be said for papyrus as it took strips of the plant and forced a whole. This might be somewhere between parchment and modern muggle paper if the roll of papyrus was made from a single plant, but that was unlikely to give a large sheet. A single standard sized parchment is nearly a foot in length and more than half that in width. The parchment used by most European Magicals was easily mass produced with low levels of automated magic at nearly no cost.

We left the museum with a greater understanding of Ancient Egypt and continued our journey down to Saqqara to see Djoser’s Step Pyramid in the Carriage. The areas of Memphis and Saqqara are much more navigable than that of Giza and so we had no guide for a tour there.

When we arrived at Mit Rahina Museum we found an open air museum that seemed more like a sculpture garden. The modern structure enclosed the colossal statue of Ramesses II and outside the building stood an alabaster sphinx. It may have been smaller than the one in Giza but it still weighed 80 tonnes and was 8 meters long. The sphinx was discovered at what had been the temple of Ptah in 1912.

Only an hour or so was spent at the Museum, where we wandered sedately from ancient sculpture to ancient sculpture occasionally taking pictures. It was mid-day and we were beginning to get tired, but we headed to Saqqara to see Djoser’s Step Pyramid. Built about 4,700 years ago, it was the first pyramid the Egyptians built and the oldest intact building.

While the Great Pyramid of Giza is completely empty inside, the tombs at Saqqara are colorful and detailed.We spent more than an hour or so just wandering around Saqqara. The Pyramid Complex of King Teti, where we crawled down a tunnel and into the pyramid to see the hieroglyphs inside the tomb and sarcophagi was the highlight of our trip there. As the sun and temperature continued to climb, we spent some time jumping from shadow to shadow trying to stay cool before I decided we should make our way back to Cairo.

Harry had already fallen asleep by the time we reached the campsite, even with the Carriage ride back taking nearly no time. We both had a good nap after drinking about half our weight in water with the idea that we would go out for lunch when it was cooler outside and we were both more rested.

A while later, we woke and took the Carriage out to Khan El Khalili, Cairo’s old bazaar, and found someplace to eat our late lunch.

The restaurant we found was called Koshary Abo Tarek. Koshary is a rice dish with pasta, rice and brown lentils. It is topped with a tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and then garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions at the table. Hot sauce was optional.

“Hot sauce is good, but it is not necessary,” they said.

“Can I try it though?” Harry asked me.

I didn’t see any harm in having a little added to a small portion of his dish so he could try it. This was how we found out that Harry likes food infinitely more spicy than I would be able to handle.

We walked for a time after eating, looking into different stalls and shops. Our steps slow after having eaten our koshary. I was looking for perhaps a little treat for Harry to try after our lunch. He was doing so well as we traveled through the crowds, his hand occasionally reaching for mine. Not because he was scared, no he just wanted to hold my hand. It was very sweet.

A ways down the street we found El Karnak which sold a dessert dish that seemed to combine every regionally traditional dessert in order to make it the greatest dessert of all time. At the very bottom was a layer of Om Ali and a scoop of ice cream. Then it had basbousa, rice pudding, kunafa, and there were cold bananas and apples mixed through. It was then drenched with mango juice and then strawberry juice before being topped with a thick whipped cream. It was all in one compact bowl that we could share as we walked. The taste wasn’t as sweet as one would think, given that there were at least five different dishes combined in one. It was more a honey and nuts sweet than sugary overload sweet. It was the most incredible dessert I have ever tasted.

They called it El kombela, the bomb.

As we ate we passed by a shop selling belly dance costumes and jewelry. The bright colors and the glinting of light on shining metal had caught my eye. They looked to be of very good quality, but it wasn’t as though I was going to take up lessons. Harry, though, had seen my eyes stray over to the colorful fabric and asked how one can make their belly dance. I laughed and said that I didn’t think I would be able to do something like that ever and we continued on our leisurely walk, our El kombela eaten up.

We picked up trinkets and books here and there as we traveled the winding streets. They always wanted to know where we were from and sometimes we engaged in a bit of conversation. Good shops were discussed. Safe places for women with children were suggested.

After walking a while a vendor walking the streets ahead of us clanging two metal rings together caught our attention.

“Nonna what do you think he has?” the young Italian boy of four asked me.

“I’m not sure Lukas, perhaps we can ask,” I replied to him in Italian.

We had decided that for our afternoon adventures in Cairo we would be a Italian grandmother and grandson, speaking in Italian for everyone to overhear. Though we spoke Arabic to those we conversed with in shops. We were both getting better at our acting. Harry for the first time, but me becoming masterful once more after so much time and mistreatment.

The man that had caught our attention had a large silver pot strapped to his front that was the length of his whole torso. There was a long spout coming out of it as well as rows of plastic cups attached to one side. He was waved down by a shopkeeper in a doorway and he poured a long stream of liquid from the thin spout.

“Excuse me good sir,” I said in Arabic, “What is it you are selling?”

“It is erk sous,” he said with a cheerful smile.

The delight and problem with having learned the language from Euro-Glyph was that you could learn a large amount of vocabulary as well as all of the grammar in just a few days. The problem, for me at least, was that if a word didn’t really translate into whatever your native language was then you had no real frame of reference. We had already found this to be the case of many food items that were local. It made it more obvious that we were tourists.

“Is it like the karkade?” I asked him. We had tried the cool hibiscus tea with our lunch earlier and I had enjoyed it.

“No, no. Erk sous, very different. Very good for you. No sugar.”

I snuck a glance at Harry to ask if he wanted to give it a try and he nodded.

“We’ll take two cups,” I said as I counted out the money.

It was the color of cola and tasted a bit bitter with hints of licorice to it. We sipped our cool drinks as we wandered further. As we strolled we found a stall that was selling pickled lemons. They were very small and round compared to what we were used to and we gave them a try. The treat was a lovely, smooth and creamy morsel that went well with our drinks.

When we had our fill of the great bazaar, we made our way back towards our campsite. We weren’t tired out again, though given all we had managed to do that must be a miracle, instead we wanted to also see the magical bazaar. The campsite was an offshoot of the magical community in Cairo and the Bazaar was hidden from view nearby.

Behind the enchantments the sprawling Bazaar of Magical Cairo was much the same as its non magical equivalent.

Both had long winding mazes for streets, shopkeepers that would lounge in their doorways, and vendors that would hawk goods from carts and stalls. Khan El Khalili was cramped, but not in a way that felt suffocating. But here, in this magical bazaar, space could be shaped to be more accommodating. The streets were wide, even the side streets had a greater sense of openness to them, and the vendors trying to catch a tourist’s attention were using magic sparks and noises that would have been overwhelming in a more narrow space.

Harry and I had no particular place in mind and far too much pocket money left, so we strolled along looking for something to catch our interest.

After going through shops for glass figures that moved and one filled with copper lanterns that displayed different night skies with their light, we happened on a candy store. Here we found brands of crisps that came in more flavors than perhaps even Bertie’s beans. There was El Leban el Sehry, a bubble gum that changed color as you blew it and would burst each bubble with a funny sound. There were also candies that were no doubt made with the tourists in mind. A small multicolored lollipop was an animated head of the pharaoh that was often found on a sarcophagus, luckily only its eyes and the uraeus were animated.

Harry was a little reluctant to try anything, but with a little coaching he was filling a bag with all sorts of oddities to try later. The strangest of which were the canopic jars with candy shaped like human organs, a chewing candy that seemed to be gum until we realized that the bubbles were soap like - but not soap tasting - and would float away, and zombie food which was shaped like body parts that had red syrupy treats inside their hard chocolate shell.

Not all of them were so chaotic, instead we found a few that were simply interesting. There was smoked lamb flavored caramels and little gummies that would randomly light up and hum. In the end we bought some that were strange, some that were revolting, and some that were just interesting.

We traveled back to the campsite for a rest after having explored the many shops. Having gotten up nearly at dawn and walked so much, we both needed the break. We would be traveling out to Alexandria soon. I was really looking forward to seeing the library in all its magical glory. After that it was a long drive out to Siwa, a place widely heralded for its unique magics.

For our last dinner in Cairo we made our way out to Hawawshi El Rabea to try hawawshi and other dishes. The restaurant had perhaps a dozen or more flat grills working at all times. The meats come from the butcher shop that the restaurant owns across the street. This seems to make the area feel more communal.

It felt as though it were a last minute street party, people moved between the different areas on both sides with the tables and seats in between the shops and looping around the corners in the streets. Laughter and sometimes singing, made it feel even more lively.

We had a number of dishes laid out on the table. The hawawshi is minced meat with aromatic spices and onion and garlic in the baladi, a bread that is toasted around the grilled meat. We ordered the regular hawawshi and the one made with local sausages too. There was a similar dish called kebda, garlic and seasoned liver with hot peppers, lemon, and grilled green bell peppers. As Harry had proven he could handle hot and spicy food, I let him get the spicy one. He ate the whole thing.

When they brought out the Molokhia they poured it between pans and sang before putting the dish together at the table. Harry, who had heard this same thing done at other tables, tried to sing along with them when the men encouraged him.

My camera, which has a small button I can press to make it less interesting and visible to others, was out and taking pictures of a Harry singing along in Arabic. If he noticed that I had brought it out to take, yet more pictures, he didn't say anything.

We dipped our hawawshi in the tahini. Eating a little bit of every flavorful dish, though Harry kept the one with hot peppers to himself.

It was late and dark by the time we reached the campsite.

We sat in our library and read for a time. When Harry started to drift off I had him get ready for bed and tuck him in. The bedtime story was a fantastical tale that he smiled through as he held Thumper, the winged horse statue, before he fell asleep.

8 February 1985

We both woke up early again in order to enjoy a traditional breakfast of Ful Medames at Ful Walheed. Ful is a dish of stewed fava beans with tahini topped with spices, oil, and peppers. Creamy, a little spicy, and more than a little pungent, we gathered up our ful in fresh pita. The tables were laden with dishes as we sat to eat, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more. We came to this place because they make “shrimp fries" with their breakfast. The dish was named that because when covered with their seasoning they looked like bright pinkish orange shrimp. They tasted like Cheetos though and that makes them the best breakfast ever.

I would have gotten us some kind of tour of the Egyptian capital, but apparently it hadn’t even been built yet. I hadn’t even seen anything to suggest that they were thinking about moving their government elsewhere. Not that the capital I was familiar with was all that far away, but it was just one more thing on a long list where my future knowledge led to confusion.

It was almost as bad as looking at or touching my wrist. I had to get a simple watch to cover the gesture as I would appear slightly insane to continuously check my wrist for messages and alerts that were never going to be there. I had mostly stopped touching the side of my face near my eye, but when I caught that gesture I could pass it off as pulling back a loose hair. I’m not sure how long it will take for me to lose these small things from the future, but I hope no one asks me why I’m doing them. If they do, I hope I can lie to them well enough.

Cairo had been extraordinary, but it was Alexandria that I was looking forward to exploring. We would only be in Alexandria a day as the trip to Siwa was three hours long even with the magic of the Carriage.

We used the hour drive from Cairo to Alexandria to nap for a while. The large and comfortable compartments in the Carriage allowed us to lay down separately. The Carriage will alert us when we are ten minutes from our destination. I had received a very stern warning from the people of Princely Carriages and a much longer lecture from Avira about going into a space expanded place inside of a space expanded place, such magics are just too complicated and far too dangerous if something should happen when one is inside them. As such the suitcase stayed zipped up and we dozed for a time in the comfort of the Carriage instead.

Author's Note:

In celebration of having been on Fanfiction.net for so long, I will be posting the next chapter on 4/25. It's my 20th anniversary.

Chapter 15: Sickness, Alexandria

Chapter Text

8 February 1985

I had conflicting memories about Alexandria.

My older self could remember it in it’s bourgeois heyday back in the 1960s, back when Alexandria was the beacon of Mediterranean culture. Millions of Cairenes would descend on Alexandria in the summer, much like those of New York descend on the Hamptons. The beaches in an Alexandrian summer would be so packed with men strutting in tiny bikinis and women under umbrella shade that barely any sand could be found. People here would speak French, just as much as Arabic.

My future self compared Alexandria more to Venice than to the Hamptons. As like the fabled Italian city, Alexandria was a place of waterways. So far out into the waters was it built that by the time of Willow Harrison, the city had invested in massive infrastructure for water and sewage to literally stay afloat. And the New Library of Alexandria was a glass structure hidden away, but no less tempting than the one that had been lost. Millions of works and enough space for thousands to study at once.

Stepping into Alexandria though, gave me a perspective of my own. It seemed we had stepped into a slum. Overcrowding in the streets, with shops or stalls, even the odd donkey pulled cart added to the picture and the smell. The near ever present smell of cigarette smoke that I had needed to become reacquainted with in England had nothing on the smell of, what must be, the raw sewage from all of Alexandria sluicing it’s way into disturbing puddles. As we attempted to slip through a seemingly never ending market to get to our first destination, we narrowly avoided stagnant pools of fetid water.

This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I decided we absolutely had to go to Alexandria.

We finally made our way through the madness to the Corniche, here at least there was enough room and a breeze to waft away the putrid smells.

Harry and I, holding hands again and looking a bit flustered from our adventure through the market, blinked at the sunlight and fresher air. I let out a breath and squeezed his hand while I smiled at him, hoping to reassure. When I got a little smile in return we started down the walkway along the waters of the Eastern Harbor.

The Citadel of Qaitbay was an imposing structure, beautifully designed, at the entrance of the Eastern Harbor on the north eastern point of Pharos Island. Built in the late 1400s it was situated exactly where the famed Lighthouse of Alexandria once stood to help all those coming to visit “The Bride of the Mediterranean'' navigate the rocky harbor. The Citadel was built using the very stones of the Lighthouse that had been brought down by earthquakes. Over its many years the fortress had been bombarded by various militaries, including the British.

“It looks just like a fort at home, but brighter.”

Harry was correct. The bright granite brick construction looked incredibly modern compared to everything else we had been introduced to on our trip thus far. There was a reason for that though.

“During the British bombardment we destroyed enough of it that it needed to be reconstructed. According to the guide book, it isn’t exactly the same as it was when built in the 15th century. And most of our big fortresses were probably built around the same time.”

“So it was a lighthouse and then a fort and then we broke their fort and they rebuilt the fort?”

“Pretty much. There was a museum built inside it that we will take a look at too. And last year it just underwent this huge restoration project. Sort of like the old stately homes do. A good clean and some fixing of things and it was lovely, but it was a rather large area to do.”

“Huh, okay.”

As lovely as the fortress and it’s museum were, I was eager to see the Library of Alexandria.

The Library that would be built decades from now was an interesting delight for academic non magical people and subjects. The original Library was burned, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, etc over many years. Eventually though, all that was truly left were the magical portions of the old Library and the Academy of Magics. They had been saved by intrepid magical scholars and then quietly made invisible to hide from potential political problems. The Academy still hosted a few lectures, but was more of a museum to the magical history of Alexandria these days.

I had us scheduled for a tour through the buildings before lunch.

One entered the complex that housed the Great Library and its Mouseion through a small shop near the Corniche that people without enough magical ability would be unable to see. The complex could not be reached simply by walking up to its invisible border because of the enchantments. Instead tour shops like these connected to each hidden magical site in the area around Alexandria with what was in essence a floo system.

When we stumbled out we were met with an entrance hall of more than 24 meters in height, with columns and statues that were more reminiscent of the Greeks than the Egyptians. Our tickets and tour paid for at the shop, we shuffled our way over to the young woman already entreating a group of people to her.

“Welcome,” she said in perfect English. I pointed out the box attached to her hip for Harry. I had seen these at the travel agency office back home. What looked like jewelry the woman wore was actually magical and connected to the box it caused it to seem like we were all communicating in the same language. Very useful for a tour, bit awkward for a tourist.

“Today’s tour includes a walk through the larger parts of the Great Library of Alexandria before we look in on the Academy. Please follow closely together.”

Harry and I followed the fifteen or so other people as she guided us down the entrance hall and off into a side corridor.

“The Library dates back to the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Owing to the Ptolemaic kings’ aggressive and well funded policies for acquiring texts, it quickly grew. This policy included works from all places, in all languages, and did not differentiate between magical or non magical."

Here she stopped to open large ornate doors. Golden in their appearance, it was probably bronze and depicted scholars reading in relaxed poses.

"At the best estimates for that time the Library housed nearly three hundred thousand scrolls, a rough equivalent being approximately one hundred thousand books."

She brought us through the doors and into a room filled with what seemed to be rows and rows of boxy shelving units without end. It created the look of open crates stacked on their side on top of each other. Many appeared to have scrolls in them, but it was obvious there should have been so much more.

"During this height of the ancient Library there were well over one hundred full time scholars in residence, studying and advancing every subject as well as teaching others. A large number of influential and important scholars worked within the Library during the third and second centuries BC.”

As she reached the center of the room she smiled at all of us and motioned that we should come in further.

“It was in part because of our Great Library, that Alexandria became regarded as the capital of knowledge and learning. Please take a few minutes to enjoy the displays here in the Golden Room.”

We explored the area, taking in the displays of scholars hard at work over scrolls. Harry went over to try and read some of the scrolls laid out in cases. The plaque next to them mentioned that it was often the policy to keep originals of a work and send back copies to the owner.

“Eventually a library within the Serapeum was established as a daughter library during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Whether this new daughter library was due to politics, the continued growth of the library and its scholars, or due to the constant threat the Great Library faced, is still in question today. Moving on down this hall we will see the Silver Room.”

We moved out of the scroll room and continued down another few hallways. Admiring the displays of art on the walls, doorways on one side continuously led to a large interior library where modern scholars were studying.

“Contrary to the widespread belief of modern non magical people, the Library of Alexandria was not burned and destroyed only one time. The decline of the Library was actually a gradual happening over several centuries, beginning with the purging of intellectuals from Alexandria. Then repeated fires, attacks, and earthquakes that caused significant damage to the collection and the buildings themselves.”

She stopped in a small alcove, though it was only small compared to the vastness of the other rooms. All along the floor and reaching up towards the curved, ornate ceiling were runes that had been deeply carved into the stone. Each runic symbol had been traced in some type of metal that seemed to shimmer and move.

“Finally, during the latter half of the 250s AD, the magical scholars' plan to protect the knowledge was started. The runic inscriptions that you can see embellished in this area are a part of the original plans to hide away the Great Library and the Academy. When the next attack happened they invoked the magic and the world lost what was left of it’s greatest library and Mouseion. This was in the 270s AD during the Palmyrene invasion and the imperial counterattack.”

She gave us some time to marvel at the runes which were made up of many different written languages before moving us onward.

“The Serapeum survived for a time afterwards, but was eventually a simple meeting place and not a place of great knowledge and learning.”

The new double doors that she had led us to were just as ornate as the last, but they were done in a silver color and the scholars etched into it here were animated enough to move through what they were reading. As she opened the door there was an obvious sparkle of magic, colors swirling through the air, and a pleasant hum. This hall was obviously for ancient magical knowledge gathered during the height of the Library’s time.

“The native Egyptians in the lower classes did not use wands for everyday magic,” she continued as she led the tour into the Silver Room. “It was priests that performed magic, often on behalf of the dead. The temple trained those with the magical ability in healing and protecting against illness. Almost all of the magic was done with the use of rituals and amulets, the power they derived from the chanted, spoken, and written word was greater than many other magical cultures across the globe.”

She led us to a display in the room depicting many different styles of art.

“With the introduction of additional magical knowledge, from the cultures of the Greeks and Romans especially, the magics of the area continuously evolved. Staves began to become more common in the Greco-Roman civilizations, influencing how the Egyptians adapted that knowledge with their own understandings.”

The display showed obvious hieratic Egyptians using staves of Roman origin, some of them had Roman hairstyles. All the figures held a staff of some kind, but some of the staves were decorated. The plaque described each staff. The common ivy vine staff of the Romans. The more elaborate Grecian staff called a thyrsus. But there were also kerukeion among them and it was interesting to read about those given what I knew about British issues with snakes.

“This can be best seen today in Alexandria in the still standing catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa where there is a perfect and harmonious blending of the three distinct styles. Built during the age of the Antonine emperors in the second century AD and serving as a place of burial for the Pharaonic funerary cult. The labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that cover multiple floors happened over time, developing the necropolis into a rare fusion of Hellenistic, Egyptian, and early Imperial Roman architecture. It even includes a large Roman styled banquet room where memorial feasts would be conducted by the relatives of the deceased.”

Harry wanted to move on to the next display as our guide continued her talk from nearer the center of the room. But I was too engrossed in the revelations about snakes laid out before me for anyone to read. He eventually managed to pull me onward to the next display.

“There was a wonderful synthesis between the Greeks who came to Alexandria and were very open minded about the local gods. The Greeks, Romans, and Jews made up the majority of the people living in Alexandria at the peak of its classical era. But there were also many thousands of Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, Moroccans, Turks, and many Asiatics. Because of its port and prominence in the Mediterranean, Alexandria was a melting pot of people from all over the ancient world. Next we will move on to the Academy of Magic, which was once known as the Mouseion because it was dedicated to the studies under all the Muses.”

After a significant pause to take in all the displays of the Silver Room, our guide led us back to the halls of the library before ushering us out of large doors to the outside. In front of us was a garden paradise of animated topiary and statuary that were taking note of us in the afternoon sunlight. The light gravel path led the way to another building that was a part of the same complex.

“While some of the statues here on display were an original part of the complex’s design, many have been added over the centuries since we took the pains to hide from the outside world. Upon learning about our effective measures to safeguard learning in Alexandria,” she said as we walked down the path, “scholars began to make their way back to this once prominent place of learning.”

She stopped beside the statue of a beautiful woman cast in bronze. The statute was on a pedestal, but the woman was quite tall on her own. She had a veil over her head and there was a reddish hue to the folds of her dress.

“This statue is of the goddess Lakshmi and was created by an unkown artist during the Gupta Empire in the third century AD.”

The goddess waved at us and we, mostly the small children, waved in return.

“Lakshmi's iconography and statues have been found in Hindu temples throughout Southeast Asia, estimated to be as early as 150 AD. Many archeologists believe that she was recognized and revered even earlier than that time.”

Nodding along, the goddess Lakshmi smiled down at us as two more of her arms made themselves known. The children renewed their waving.

“The statue of the goddess you see before you was brought with a scholar early in the fourth century AD, just over sixty years since the Great Library closed itself off. He believed war would soon break out in his native lands and wished to find a safe haven for this Lakshmi to rest. When the scholar eventually sought to return, the magics woven into the statue prevented its removal. It is only Lakshmi that can decide if she will move, no other can decide it for her.”

I laughed a bit as Harry and I waved farewell to the statue and made our way up the stairs of the academy after a quick picture. Our guide stopped at enormous brass doors with great rings in the center and turned to address us.

“The Academy of Magic now serves in a mostly research position with scholars from all over the world coming here to explore and create with magic. In the days before the complex was hidden away from the world, the whole complex was sometimes referred to as the Mouseion of Alexandria and included the Great Library.

“In its original meaning a ‘mouseion’ was any place that was dedicated to the Muses. This was often the study of music or poetry, but was eventually associated with academies of learning such as with those led by Plato and Aristotle.

“The Ptolemies established the Mouseion with the intent of bringing together the best and brightest scholars in the Hellenistic world while collecting all of the world’s written works. While it did not imply a study of music or poetry for the Ptolemies, such things were still studied here and many scholars have brought works of art with them. The word ‘museum’ often used to mean a collection of art comes from this earlier form of use.

“As we make our way through the great halls of the Academy of Magic we must remember that this floor is still in use for scholars of magic. There are several lectures open to the public in these halls every day, tickets can be purchased through the normal vendors a day in advance. On the upper level we will explore more of the history of the Academy.”

There were a few lecture halls in use that Harry and I peeked our heads inside, and one which looked like a laboratory with several scholars at work. When we reached the second floor it sprawled out before us with displays of magic throughout history. There were moments of change in the use or practice of magic within the Mediterranean. A long display created by a number of scholars who came from far away to study, showed how magic was incorporated into everyday life back in their homelands.

All told, the lengthy tour was exactly what I had been hoping for when setting our sights on Alexandria. I felt hopeful that the depressing and odorous stumble we had upon arrival would not inhibit our trip further.

At the end of the tour we were shown to the massive gift shop. I explained to Harry that it would probably be wise to use his allowance here for today. We had another significant stop on our day tour of Alexandria, but it was less likely to have interesting shopping available. Though the books on offer were interesting, there was not anything specific about snakes. When I asked the shopkeep they told me I would be better off finding a book store specific to such a topic. I planned to write a letter or two to the store they recommended later.

When Harry had finished finding something to spend his allowance on, we moved to the small café for lunch. I had originally planned for us to dine on street food in Alexandria this afternoon and evening, but our unfortunate introduction to the city made me feel the food was less than safe for a developing child. The kofta and falafel were tasty and filling, if they weren’t exactly what I had wanted to soothe our hunger that afternoon. It felt more like mall food than authentic cuisine.

We were going to push through the mid afternoon nap that seemed so common in Egypt, but Harry was tired and it wouldn’t matter to the itinerary that much. I asked one of the café workers about somewhere we could use the suitcase without being bothered. Apparently, there was a small place in the complex that could be rented for a short period of time. As Harry and I laid down for what should have been just a few hours rest, I could not have known what things were going to be like when we awoke.

8 February 1985

“Gramma Bella?” came a far off voice. “Please, Gramma, please wake up,” there were sniffles and it jolted me.

I couldn’t manage more than a groan, but there was tiny crying happening so close to my face that I had to try and open my eyes. Finally succeeding in the immense task I was able to see watery green eyes staring at me in fear. That sight shot me awake much faster, sitting up and taking in a gasping deep breath I suddenly found myself with a sobbing four year old flung into my arms. I couldn’t really make out what he was saying, but my little clock on the bedside alerted me that we had slept for nearly four hours. Or perhaps just I had slept that long.

“It’s alright Harry, I guess I was just more tired than I thought,” I ran my fingers through his hair. “The next few days will just be one oasis after another so it won’t be quite as compact as this. I’m sure it will be fine. It’s okay,” I said as I looked down at the snuffling bundle in my arms. He had on one of his charms that turned his hair a bright red, but his eyes were still his mother’s green.

“Was worried,” he whimpered. “Somebody knocked at the case, but I couldn’t get you to wake.”

Oh dear, we had stayed past our siesta time. There was sure to be a fine.

“That’s okay. I must have needed the sleep. I’ll go up and talk to them, we probably have to pay extra for staying longer. That’s all, nothing to worry about.”

I went to put on more appropriate clothing and a disguise, but noticed my reflection in the mirror. “Oh my, what?” I carefully pulled a strand of hair closer to my eyes to inspect it. My hair was bright red.

The same bright red as Harry’s hair. If it was accidental magic while he was upset, I wanted to handle this very carefully. If it was because we were using the Fabulousa charms so much, things could be worse.

“Harry? How long has our hair been like this?”

“I woke up and my hair was red, but I thought it was okay. And then I went and got some snacks cause you said I could and you were still asleep. And then when I was eating the suitcase knocked and I went to see you cause you needed to wake up. And I couldn’t get you to wake up but your hair was red like my hair and you weren’t waking up and there were people knocking, but they left while I tried to wake you up.”

He said it all in quite a rush with sniffles saved for the end. That didn’t sound like accidental magic, more like something that happened to us at the same time. It crossed my mind that perhaps there was a ward over the place of rest in the complex that would identify people who over stayed.

Since it didn’t seem to be doing either of us any harm I got dressed, but forewent the charm to change my appearance. Instead I wore bagger clothing, shoes with lifts, and some thick plastic sunglasses. After setting Harry back up in the kitchen with his snack, which I complimented him on getting when he was hungry, I checked the security of the suitcase and exited out into the complex.

The man at the desk was definitely laughing at me. He kept trying to hide it behind his hand, badly, before giving up. By the time I had actually reached the desk it was a lost battle.

“Sorry, sorry. We get one or two every week with the problem,” he paused to laugh again.

“And just what is the problem?” I asked in an annoyed tone.

“Ah, in the old days it was often dates or silver. These days the old camels usually carry tourists. You, my lady, have a deshret lice infestation.”

I could actually feel my face fall. Lice? I have lice, Harry has lice, the lice are now probably all over the interior of the suitcase. sh*t.

“Deshret?” I asked in the hopes of getting more information.

When I made my way back down to the kitchen in the suitcase, Harry was already starting to fall asleep again. According to the information packet that the complex provided to the afflicted free of charge, the need to sleep is a side effect of the deshret lice.

The lice drains magic and turns hair different vibrant colors. Usually beginning with a startlingly bright red. The draining of magic can cause a significant increase in hunger and tiredness to replenish the magic the lice are taking. Though camels are not magical creatures, the deshret lice have adapted enough to at least hitch rides with them. They need to eventually find a source of magical nourishment though or they die. Because only those with significant enough magic will attract the lice, those camel riding magically inclined tourists will often find their way to magical sites in Egypt. The local magical government ensures that each of the major places know what to look for and have the standard healing packet available for the tourists to use. Apparently, brightly colored tourists might break the Statute of Secrecy and they don’t want lice to be the reason.

Harry and I both took our potions for the lice and then used the special shampoo we had been given before turning in for some more rest. The pamphlet was very clear that the lice would be in our hair or the hair of someone or some animal we had come into close contact with and we needn't worry over the suitcase being riddled with lice. There was a short recommended quarantine time, but since we were so tired touring wouldn’t be any fun anyway.

9 February 1985

Waking up in the middle of the next afternoon to find my hair a lavender color was both annoying and amusing. I showered and used the special shampoo again before heading towards the kitchen. Even though Harry and I were both tired we would still need to take our regular potions. I made us a light brunch and laid out the potions before going to his room.

It had taken a while, but Harry’s room in the suitcase had finally started to feel like his own. He had a few of the books we had taken in his bookshelf along with a few mementos. His little moon was a soft light on his bedside table where a couple of magazines we’d picked up in Greece were laying. I could tell that his hair had changed color too, but I wasn’t worried. The information I was given said that was common even as the lice died off.

I woke him gently and then, when I was sure he was up and moving, I started to clean up around one of our spare rooms. It wasn’t really a spare bedroom, though it could be used as such, we hadn’t really used it or decorated it much at all. Little things seemed to have accumulated in the interim. It was a perfect room for a traveling lab, but since Harry was going to keep this case as he got older I wasn’t entirely comfortable adding a permanent lab yet. Instead I had a lab in a box.

The lab in a box included the most commonly used equipment and materials, even a work table to put things on popped out of the box. It also came with recipe cards that the lab could carry out by itself. If one needed a Pepperup potion, but was too ill to make it, then the recipe card was set in the proper place and the lab made the potion without needing any guidance from the witch or wizard. When it was through it cleaned itself and bottled the potion. It wouldn’t do anything nearly as good as a person with my capabilities could make, but it would be fine enough work for every day type needs.

When I had it all laid out I started it working on the potion to develop animated photos. It was a multiple step process, but I was hungry and this first step would take awhile before the next step needed setting up. I made my way back to the kitchen where Harry was already eating after having taken his potions. His hair was more of a mauve color.

We ate in relative silence, but I could tell he was still anxious about not being able to wake me yesterday. I needed to do something that would smooth things over, as well as give him another resource to call on if I was ever out of commission. There was an obvious choice.

“Harry do you remember how we talked about Clinkscale being a kind of godfather to you now?”

“Yeah, and that’s why I can go into the big caverns and do stuff with the other goblins cause my many greats gramma was a child of the halls.”

This was very reassuring. Not just that Harry remembered important facts like that, but also because he was comfortable enough to be the motor mouth child that I could sometimes see in him. I was lucky to understand him, he could go so fast.

“Yes, that’s right. He and I are always in touch even when we are way out here in Egypt. He’s having a whole bunch of fun putting things together for you so it’s set up when we get home.”

“Okay,” Harry said as he took a bigger bite of toast and jam.

“I have my post box on my desk. All you have to do is write him a letter, seal it up, and then put it in the post box. Once you close the lid it goes off to London. He can respond the same way. It’s not instant, like a telephone, but it is safe and fast.”

Harry was still working on his too big bite, but chewed and swallowed fast enough to say, “Okay, should I write him today?”

He had misunderstood where I was going, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It would be good for Harry to continue to build a trusting relationship with Clinkscale. That would make things easier on him when it came time to remove the soul leech.

“If you are feeling up to it you can start a draft telling him about all the things we’ve done so far. But if you are ever worried or if I get sick and can’t help, you can always send a letter to Clinkscale. Okay?”

“Okay,” came a slightly sheepish reply. “I think I can write a little.”

“Good, don’t push yourself though. I’m going to start developing the photos that we’ve taken so far in one of the spare rooms. It’ll take a bit to set up, but then it’s just a bunch of waiting. I might take a nap. You can always come in and wake me if you need me though.”

After breakfast Harry went out to the stone table in the garden with his little stationery and quill set to write his goblin godfather a letter about his holiday. I went back to the temporary potions lab to continue my work on the photos.

The potions I had set up earlier were going well, so I set myself to unloading my camera. Unlike my other big expenses, I did not need to be talked into this or reassured that it was helpful and necessary. I was never going to be able to fumble my way through any of the cameras now on market, but I also knew it would be important to both myself and Harry for us to have physical proof of our memories. I had to ask Clinkscale for help finding someone to make what I wanted, but he knew someone in the Nation that could help and it all worked out.

The camera was designed specifically for me, accustomed to the latest technological advancements that had become so ordinary that I hardly thought about them. It was only in their absence that it was noticeable. Although it resembled a costly non magical camera of this time, the device had been enhanced with multiple magical features to make it more familiar and user friendly for me.

In order to not get robbed for pulling out a super expensive looking camera, there was a little button on it that would turn on or off a small notice-me-not type spell. It basically made the camera less interesting to people. There was also a special strap that would probably not be of any use to anyone else. It took real pictures of myself and Harry, even in our disguises it should show us as we are underneath the magical charms from Fabulousa.

The crafter who had been brought on to make the camera was very impressed with their charms. He was able to link the magic of the charms to the camera through the small attachment. As long as the attachment, just a looped cloth strap, was keyed to the charms and on the camera the pictures would show us as ourselves. He warned that the enchantment on the strap would only last about a month, but that worked out well for us.

Honestly, one of the biggest and most obvious differences was not having to look through a view finder. I’m not entirely sure how people managed to take good pictures at all if they were just squinting through tiny boxes and hoping for the best. Instead a display shows up just after the picture is taken and I can delete the photo if it isn’t up to my standards. The image on the display doesn’t have the animation on it, but I still thought this was a huge step up.

The last big difference is the film collection. In the magical world they are still behind the times in terms of immediate photo production. The Polaroid cameras of the seventies never caught on enough for the magical world as the image couldn’t also contain the animation. Perhaps that would change in the upcoming decades, but the non magical communities would start moving away from hardcopies of their photos at the same time.

For my camera there was what amounted to an infinite void with a massive stock of film which was used every time I took a picture. I could probably go a few decades without reloading it. When the image was approved, the film moved to a different part of the camera where it was stacked with all of the other pictures like a deck of cards. All I needed to do now was take out the decks from the right part of the space expanded camera and develop the film in the animation potion.

The potion was still finishing its last simmer by the time I had removed the small wrapped packets of film and set up the developing trays. I snapped the camera closed and made sure that everything was working properly. Then I had a sweet idea.

I walked through the little house and out into the flower garden. I could just see Harry, diligently working on his letter, the quill being brushed along his jaw as he tried to figure out what to write next. I crouched down a bit and hoped he was too absorbed to notice. I snapped a few pictures of him before he caught me. We both laughed as I ran away.

The packs would collect automatically after fifty pictures were stacked, though I could force it to do that with fewer, and were wrapped in a gossamer web that helped in developing the pictures. In a special bag I had the pictures from Greece ready to go, I had wanted to try and keep each country separate in their decks. I honestly had tried to take fewer pictures after seeing how many our eight or so days in Greece had generated. With the eleven packs from Greece and the six packs from our trip in Egypt thus far, I doubt that I will ever be able to break the habit of the digital photographer. Granted the last pack from Greece probably only held twenty and the last pack from Egypt only held the pictures I had just taken in the garden.

I was definitely going to need more of the developing solution.

The process for developing film in the non magical world is extremely complicated and fragile. Or it seems that way to me at least. For magical film it is infinitely easier. There are four standard picture sizes and trays that accommodate them, though one could get a tray custom made for something larger or smaller. Each tray has two places in it, one to put the developing solution and the packets of film and one where the photographs will appear when finished. There is no need to adjust light, no washing, no fixing, no projecting to make a print. Magic was wonderful.

The amount of potion made was set to the fifty pack amount that was standard for magical cameras, they would go in to the tray together. Because of my apparent obsession with taking photographs, I would need to make the developing solution sixteen times if I wanted to just do one size. If I wanted to do something larger or smaller I would have to develop a whole pack over again in that size. It was the only real downfall of the system, the packs stayed together forever. I had enough ingredients to make the solution ten times without a problem, but after that I would have to find supplies somewhere. I knew I would be taking pictures, but I did assume that I would only start developing them later down the line.

The developing solution didn’t take long to make and soon I had the wallet sized and medium sized images for the first part of Greece setting in their trays. I started another batch of the solution on my lab in a box before seeking out Harry. I wasn’t feeling quite as tired anymore and hoped he was doing well too.

“Gramma Bella, did you know that ‘deshret’ means red?” Harry asked from the couch in the living room. “It says so in the pamphlet.”

“Well, I think it specifically means red crown,” I said as I pointed to my now blueish hair. “The Red Crown was what the rulers of Lower Egypt wore and the White Crown was for Upper Egypt. When they came together the rulers wore the double crown.” I pointed out the picture on the front of the pamphlet of the double crown. “Though your crown looks a bit of bright pink candy floss at the moment.”

Harry’s eyes went wide with amusem*nt and he was off to the mirror to check his new color, a bright difference to the mauve of a few hours ago.

I gathered up all the pieces of parchment that had winged off the coffee table in his haste and set them to rights before heading back to the lab. His handwriting was definitely improving. It was yet another part of his behavior that hadn’t made much sense previously. Harry could read, and read well, but his handwriting was atrocious. Even with a pen or crayon his handwriting was more like the age he actually was, instead of the level he was at with his reading skills. In the beginning I had attributed his high skill levels to the horcrux leaking the knowledge into him.

Instead there was a much more simple reason for it. A much sadder reason. Petunia read bedtime stories to Dudley, every night without fail. Harry wanted this in the way that any child would yearn for such tenderness, but he knew his aunt would rather hurt him than indulge him. He would listen to the stories until he had them memorized, then he would tell himself the story in his cupboard before going to sleep. When he was stable enough to walk and clean, he was set to clean his cousin’s room as well. The temptation of the story books was too much and he would steal them away whenever he thought he could without getting caught. He guessed that he had started doing that a year ago or more now.

Once he’d figured out how to read those stories, he learned to read from the other books that the Dursleys had hoped would encourage Dudley. Then he moved on to magazines that Petunia kept in nearly every part of the house. The living room, the den, even the laundry room. Whenever he felt he could get through a story, chapter, or article without stumbling he would pretend someone was reading them to or with him.

I think that I will never be certain if this was better than what I had assumed was happening with the horcrux.

Harry memorized and read better than his age because he wanted to craft fantasies of someone who would love him enough to read to him, but he had no need to write anything out so his writing skills were only slightly above average for his age.

“I wanna picture!” a giggling, pink haired little boy jumped back into view. He was the epitome of innocent joy in that moment and reminded me of Nymphadora Tonks. He also seemed to have picked up my photography habits.

We raced through the house, laughing all the way, and got the camera set. Harry gave silly poses for me and I snapped half a dozen pink haired Harry pictures.

“That was fun,” he said breathlessly. “Is this how photos are made?”

“Yes, this one is making the solution that the film goes into and these trays are creating the final product. Look, some of our Greece ones are already done. I put one packet in the small and one in the regular size. Let me know if you want one in a different size. I’ve got the big tray here, but I can’t think of one to put into it.”

Harry thought about it for a moment before looking up at me with a sparkle that was best reserved for James Potter’s maddeningly creative pranks. Dear me, I’m in for it.

“We could put the ones you just took in it! And the garden one from earlier! And–And we could send them to Master Clinkscale so he can see the funny colors too.”

Nearly the size of a sheet of printer paper the photos would be quite the surprise for Clinkscale, especially as I hadn’t written him about the delay in our trip.

Harry and I went about putting the developing solution into the right side of the large tray and then we added the packets for the pictures I had taken today as well as the ones from the end of Greece that weren’t the full fifty count. He asked so many questions about the process that I ended up teaching him how the whole thing worked, beginning to end.

By the time we finished we were replacing the small trays with a new batch and then taking out our new large photographs. He looked so happy in them it was ridiculous. The last ones from Greece were a few I had snapped at the Pegasus Races and on the White Swan. I wanted a copy of them for ourselves so I reset the smaller tray and put the packets back in for another round while Harry was looking through everything.

“It’s important, you know, to put the names of the people on the back and where it was and what the date was. That’s so when you tell the stories later you have it to remind you of little things. Or so when your great-great-great grandkids find them stuffed in a box somewhere they know what’s going on in the picture.”

“We should definitely do that then.”

“That’s fine, but first we should write our letters to Master Clinkscale.”

“You’re writing him too?”

“Oh, yes. We have a lot to discuss.”

We moved everything to the kitchen table to spread out our assorted papers and the pictures. Harry set about rewriting his draft to Master Clinkscale, occasionally flipping through some of the photos. I went through the post box and tasked myself with finishing things that should have been done yesterday.

During the war I set up safe houses for my group of agents amongst the madness. I thought it best if there was a way that could not be traced by magical or muggle means when acquiring these safe houses. This led me to using the money given to me by the Order in a way that would definitely be described as laundering. But instead of drug dealers hiding their finances, I was an intelligence officer laying false trails and hiding true ones so that my people could be pulled out to a safe location.

Lily had been feeling left out, I think. She was an amazing scholar. Crafty and innovative and an absolute powerhouse. There were numerous times that she was on what would be called the front line, fighting Death Eaters. Fighting Voldemort. But she felt as though she weren’t helping enough. That’s when I introduced her to money laundering. Not exactly what a nice older lady is supposed to introduce a smart high class woman to, but neither of us was much for what society thought we were supposed to be doing.

The safe houses, and other things, that she had bought and concealed with the money out of the Potter vault were well and truly hidden. Except, of course, from me. The few things we had done together and the few places I had introduced her to, meant that I could pull on several different threads and the goblins could unravel the whole operation.

The letter I had received from Master Clinkscale expounded on the things that Gringotts was available to do for us. Gringotts Bank had gotten around various laws and treaties by having their non magical human kin build a banking system of their own outside of the magical world. It was not an ordinary bank, the likes of myself and many others would never even know of its existence. No this bank served a special purpose for the magical community in transactions between the two worlds.

It was doing the same high end services as the muggle banking sector, but it also provided more in depth falsification of data. This wasn’t just for the business fronts that they created. No, they also ensured that people could become new people. Through these services people who had no records in the muggle world, like the daughter of a pureblood family, could obtain enough documentation to pass as a person born into the muggle world. They also assisted those who were, in effect, immortal. For example, if a vampire wished to stay on the non magical side they would draw up a convincing amount of paperwork for them to be able to live a muggle life several times. They had even started to ready themselves for the digital age, since people would now need a digital footprint.

He was rather upset that the Potters would go outside of the bank in order to create false money trails and hide things. I was able to calm him by reminding him that Lily was a muggleborn. Even if she wasn’t, I was the daughter of a pureblood family that continued to have extensive contact with the magical world and still had no idea that these services existed. I then pushed that Lily and I had been even more paranoid during the war, there didn’t seem to be anyone we could trust enough. I understood having things done in a completely muggle way, even if she had known that this service – which is not listed in the book – existed, just because of the paranoia.

I had told Master Clinkscale that it was curious, though, that she was able to continue this even that late into the war. She would have been in hiding. She and James barely left the house at that point and they didn’t come out to fight at all after that. We knew that Albus cleared out the money that was then laundered and that same system bought the house on Wisteria Walk. Was it possible that Albus had worked on this system during the war to buy and hide other properties? The team was looking into that, but I didn’t know if we would have a satisfactory answer any time soon.

In the mean time, there were homes all over Europe, Oceania, and the Americas for Harry to hide away in or use as he saw fit because they had all been bought with Potter money. It seemed that the Potter fortune had basically bankrolled our entire side of the war effort. Harry would be able to buy plots on the moon when the time came, that’s how massive the Potter fortune was.

I was still getting updates on all of the things Lily had done with that money and how Avira and Master Rayner’s assistants were making everything habitable and safe. Those houses would make for good escapes, but I was also hoping that we could use them for Harry’s tutoring sessions. The reports said they had not found any signs that anyone had been to the havens since they were purchased and stocked years ago. The preservation charms that had failed were still being studied, but I felt sure that they would have fallen on 31 October 1981.

The other thing of great importance that we were talking about was the twist. It really was supposed to be such a simple thing to have the family tree drawn up. I wanted several generations because I honestly didn’t know enough about Lily’s family to fill in the blanks. I also thought something that stretched from floor to ceiling would look nice in Harry’s new room. It was all because the important part to me was making sure that Lily’s muggle family showed up that this even happened.

On the great family tapestries that adorn the old pureblood family houses it is the breath of magic that updates when there is a new child and later on it will add the name of that child. The breath of magic is an old saying due to the invoking of old magic on many heirlooms, properties, and tapestries. When a magical baby is born, the very first breath it takes afterwards asserts that baby is a magical descendant of the family line. When that breath is taken after their birth, wand waving magical or squib, the tapestry shows that there is a new addition. There is quite a bit of argument over why it takes longer with a name when so many parents already have one picked out. I think that it’s because the child needs to know their own name. But there are those who think it’s because magic is waiting to make sure that the babe will live.

Muggles, those with such a low level of magic they couldn’t connect with anything in the magical world, do not show up on the family tapestries. They do not have the breath of magic to give to the tapestry. They also don’t appear in the Gringotts Archive unless a muggleborn should do an extensive tree on their own accord which would include muggles. To my knowledge, and apparently to the knowledge of the whole Goblin Nation, it has never before happened that a child born to a magical pureblood family has such low magical abilities that they would register as a muggle babe instead of a magical one. A muggleborn might have two muggle parents and a muggle sibling, but for a many generations magical family to have a child that does not even qualify as a squib in its level of magic has never been heard to happen.

Havoc was happening under Gringotts Bank. Master Clinkscale appeared to be enjoying it.

I had read many fanfictions in my future time where Harry Potter was Lord Potter Peverell Black Slytherin Gryffindor etc. Sometimes those were fun to read in all their tropey goodness. But people weren’t really Lords any more, though their family lineage would get them a voting seat on the Wizengamot. Most purebloods were related to each other, far more comfortably than many would care for, just like how the nonmagical royal families of the world intermarried. That meant that if enough people died out, then the title could be claimed by a small pool of wixen. But it wouldn’t really be worth as much as it had been two hundred years ago, so why bother? There was really no incentive to try to claim things any more except for money, and the great houses usually fell on hard times long before they died out enough for some minor cadet branch to try applying for heirship. No one would think highly of anyone who went out of their way to claim the heirship of Gryffindor by way of the Ministry clerks and the tests at Gringotts.

I wrote out a draft to Clinkscale that was little more than a bullet list of things to go over. I needed to be updated on the safe houses, the lineage issues, the search for appropriate tutors, and the Dursleys. It had been long enough that the letter would be visible to Petunia by now, it was charmed to alert Gringotts once it had been opened. I also wanted to make sure he didn’t fret over a little lice. We would be up and moving tomorrow. Our scheduled time at the oases of Egypt would be a little shorter, but we would still have a great deal of time to take in the magical community of Siwa.

10 February 1985

After we had written and mailed our final drafts with the photos to Clinkscale, we had gone through all of the photos so far and written a description on the back. I had Harry pull out any of the ones he really liked so that we could have them framed. I didn’t want to be the woman who lived with her whole life hidden in storage bins anymore.

Avira was making most of my home muggle friendly as I needed to maintain my cover, but everywhere we could there would be little bits of my past decorating the home. Pictures and tchotchkes displayed with pride. Photos that had only been in albums were framed and hanging. I had lost a great deal in the fire, but there was still some left of my time with her and now I was going to bring it out. To me, this change was as huge as the changes made for Harry.

I wanted Harry to be a part of that process. I had seen the inside of the Dursley home, with it’s hundreds of pictures of Dudley. There was not a single photo of Harry on their walls. I wanted to change that for him, just as I was changing it for myself. I was certain that over the years there would be new pictures and choosing which one to take down so the new one could go up would be difficult, but for now he needed to know how important and loved he was in every way that I could manage.

We had exhausted our supplies for making the potion to develop animated photos, but we had a good number of prints ready and our next stop would bring us directly into a magical district. Hopefully, it would be easy to find good quality ingredients in Siwa. The magical Siwa people had split off early from the non magical due to some type of war according to our guide book. There was a note that it was possible that it was done not after a conflict, but before the conflict. This was due to the magical population of Siwa being internationally recognized as having the highest capabilities in divination in the world.

With our hair back to its normal color and the quarantine period observed, we could finally get moving. I still wanted to see one more place in Alexandria, the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa. We were originally scheduled to see it, but I wanted to see it even more after our tour through the Great Library where the guide and displays mentioned it.

After making a generous donation to the Library and Academy, Harry and I made our way back out into Alexandria. It made me wonder again about the conflicting knowledge I had of this city. I had caught a headline on one of the muggle newspapers that there was some sort of friction between America and Egypt about some kind of plans for infrastructure at the moment, but I was otherwise clueless as to why the city was so different.

In order to avoid any unpleasantness and to speed our way, we took the Carriage out to the necropolis directly. There were small tours of people going into the catacombs and we joined the precession down circular stairs into the bedrock of Alexandria. As we reached the rotunda at the end of the stairs we read from our tour books about this remarkable place.

While we learned about the Mound of Shards discovery in 1900 and the Roman banquet hall where relatives and friends of the deceased would commune with their dead, something interesting was happening on the walls. It wasn’t really noticeable at first, but then Harry gasped.

All along the walls were snakes, not surprising given they are extremely prevalent in all three of the cultures that are present in the catacombs. But the carved agathodaemons in the form of snakes on either side of the entrance to the inner tomb were taking exception to Harry. They carried the Roman caduceus and a Greek thyrsus, above them were shields with gorgon heads. They were not moving or making noise, but they were starting to magically brighten.

It was possible that they were just reacting to someone with a great deal of magic, but I was more of the mind that they wanted to talk to a parselmouth. I pulled Harry off to the side and motioned for him to quiet down and make it seem as though nothing was different. People were taking pictures next to the statues and carvings while we waited back towards the stairs. By the time the area was clear I had made my decision.

The whole reason that Harry did not already have a pet snake was because I did not want him to feel heartbroken when he could no longer speak to his friend after the soul leech was removed. I also couldn’t give away the fact that I knew he could speak to snakes. This seemed like a way to introduce the fact that Harry could speak parseltongue without being emotionally damaging. It was unlikely that they would hurt him, if they were trying to protect the entrance because of the leech they would just make us leave.

“Alright, little one. Looks like everyone is far enough off and the next group hasn’t even gotten to the first part of the tour yet. Let’s see what this is all about. You’ll need to take a bit of a lead, they are very old and might not be strong enough to recognize my magic.”

Harry nodded and moved closer to one of the agathodaemons, I kept him from touching it though so he said hello to it instead. Or at least I think it was hello as it was said in parseltongue. His little hello had quite the effect on all the magic in the area. More of it poured into the snake in front of him and eventually it hissed back at Harry.

As Harry hissed a bit with his new friend I had to interrupt to make sure he knew I couldn’t understand them.

“I think you have an ability like mine,” Harry looked up at me with the interruption. “You know how I talk to the cats and can hear what they’re saying? You’re doing that with the snake right now. I can’t hear anything other than hissing. Could you tell me what’s going on? Are they upset?”

“No, no, no everything is fine. He says that I’m a Speaker and they haven’t had one in a long time. I told him I was visiting with my grandmother and that we were taking a tour of the tomb.”

There was shuffling noise from behind us. Our time had run out, the next tour was coming in.

“Tell him real quick that we can’t be seen doing magical things in front of other people, but we will try and let you say good bye on our way out. Then get in the middle so I can take a picture, okay?”

“Right,” Harry said as he whispered quickly to the serpent before hopping into the middle of the pillars. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed like the carvings were more impressive than they had been minutes ago.

A little bit of magic followed us into every tomb, but the carvings didn’t move or hiss at Harry. I wasn’t entirely certain that it was because he had asked them. It was old magic after all.

On our way back out we lingered long enough to have another few minutes of parseltongue. Harry enjoyed getting to know all the different snakes in the area a little more and insisted that we take pictures of him with each of his new friends.

We were originally going to go along the beach and follow the road from Alexandria to the Siwa Oasis, but with how things had become shifted due to the deshret we were now going to have the Carriage take us by the straightest route possible. The Carriage couldn’t go over water and had difficulties with mountains without roads, but had no issue with deserts. As such instead of a three hour plus drive in the Carriage, we would now only have a little more than an hour drive.

Author's Note:

A nice bonus chapter in celebration of having an account on FanFiction.net for 20 years. Next chapter is set for 5/20

Chapter 16: Divine, Oasis

Chapter Text

10 February 1985

During our drive we ate a simple meal and talked about what it was like to be able to speak to animals that others could not. Harry was at turns frustrated and disappointed by the talk, but it made me silently joyful that he was expressing negative emotions around me. We had to get used to each other, no more walking on egg shells, and part of that was having negative feelings.

“Having the ability to communicate with animals is unusual and it often shows up in family lines. Not always, just often. It's one of the inheritable traits under divination.” I ate a bite of my sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “The abilities are slowly being lost. Over the last century there have been very few who have any of the unique abilities associated with family lines. There hadn’t been a metamorphmagus in the Black family line since 1890, but one popped up in a cadet branch recently.”

“Meta-more-majest?”

“Metamorphmagus,” I said enunciating slowly. “That ability allows a wixen to change their physical appearance at will, they’re born with that ability. It is an inheritable trait under transfiguration. An animagus, on the other hand, is a person who can turn into an animal after they work very hard at their transfiguration magics. And a werewolf is a person who is infected with lycanthropy and doesn’t have a choice but to transform into a werewolf on the full moon. Neither of those is an inherited trait though.”

That reminded me, I didn’t know if the Wolfsbane potion was already out and available. That is definitely something the Potters would have funded. I’ll need to look into it for Harry’s new portfolio.

“So you can only be born with it? The metamorphmagus one?”

“Yes, though when you get older you can learn human transfiguration. A metamorphmagus just does it with a thought instead.”

“That’s so awesome,” Harry said before taking a sip from his drink. “How do they know? That they can do that stuff? Is there a test? Cause I didn’t know I could talk to snakes.”

“Well,” and here’s where that heartbreak was going to come in, “I’m not entirely certain that it’s you that can speak to snakes. Do you remember how we talked about the magic going through your scar? It might be because of that. I don’t want you to get too excited, when you get your scar healed the ability might be gone.”

Master Clinkscale and I had told Harry about the magical protections and the wild magics, but we had presented the scar as more of a magical infection that was not healing properly. He thought getting to be bathed in starlight was a neat way to fix it. Telling an abused child that a piece of the man who murdered his parents – and tried to murder him – was sitting inside his scar was just not going to happen. That sort of information could wait until we knew he was emotionally capable of handling it and after Tom was absolutely dead.

“uMmm– Well, that’s okay. Cause I’ve got it now an’ I can talk to a bunch of magic snakes while I still have it. Even though I won’t have it later.”

I was a little stunned. Partly because of how he had taken the idea of not being able to Speak anymore and partly because of a quote rattling around my head. For some reason I thought it was from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but I couldn’t place it.

“You’re right. But you should be careful when using it as it does make noise and the reactions in Britain especially won’t be favorable. You see it’s an ability associated with the Slytherin family and, most recently, with Voldemort. They weren’t very nice so a large number of people associate the bad things they did with the powers that they had.”

“That’s not true though right?”

“Of course not, but sometimes people can’t separate things in their heads. They think something is bad because someone once did something bad even if it isn’t bad in other ways or circ*mstances.”

How does one have this kind of philosophical discussion with a child? I had no idea, just had to wing it and hope for the best.

“Take the dancing feet charm for instance. In Britain Tarantallegra is considered to be a child’s spell, used by silly children and not very effective at doing anything other than making one’s feet jerk in a dance like motion. But in Laos the Tarantallegra is considered a dark spell and it is illegal for its magical population to cast. That’s because decades ago a serial killer used it on people to cause them to fall down stairs or over ledges. In Laos that spell became so synonymous,” look of confusion from Harry, “it meant the same thing, made them think of the death caused by the spell so much, that they outlawed its use entirely.”

“So it’s good in Britain, but not in Laos?”

“This is the same problem that people will have when they know someone is a parseltongue, they won’t be able to separate the bad things that happened with a gift that, in and of itself, is not bad. Just like the Tarantallegra, it simply exists. It is people that make something good or bad, Harry. Britain never had the bad things happen with Tarantallegra, so they don’t think of bad things for the spell. Laos had a lot of bad things happen with Tarantallegra, so they think of those bad things with the spell. It is illegal in Laos, but not illegal in Britain because of the associations it has for each group of people.”

He looked so confused and I was worried that I had mucked it all up, so I settled on a compromise.

“I know that in India and in parts of Mexico they are very appreciative of the parselmouth ability, though I don’t rightly remember all the specifics at the moment. How about, if you still have your speaker ability after your starlight bath, we go for a visit to one of those places and you can learn more about it from people like that?”

The confusion faded with a little gasp of happiness and a bright smile.

After that Harry spent his time reading quietly beside me or looking out one of the windows. I was trying to focus on a book of my own, but my thoughts continued to get pulled into what had happened with the tapestry.

I had to finish that letter to Clinkscale. There was just so much to cover, I needed a bit more time and space to write it all out. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had known. Often muggleborns who have grandparents that were part of the magical world would have some indication. Perhaps he was too worried that telling her would put her in danger? He did change his name when he left, probably to avoid association with his pureblood family. Her mother’s father had been born into a pureblood family, her great grandfather had active magic. Wouldn’t she have mentioned it if she had known?

It’s just that Lily would have qualified as a half blood, legally speaking, if she had known. A half blood is someone who had both muggle and magical family in the four generations before themselves. That sort of thing was established back in the sixties after long, drawn out political struggles. Even stranger was that on her father’s side there were squibs too. Her father’s grandparents had both been squibs of pureblood families. She would have been legally qualified as a half blood from either side.

If she had known, why wouldn’t she tell anyone?

Why didn’t she tell me?

11 February 1985

“Long ago,” she said, “before the end of the time of Alexander, there was one who went out into the desert to make a new home. Si-Amun came to the oasis and here created a thriving home. He was a diviner of great ability, all the generations after him were blessed with his gift. It was considered to have been given to him by the gods and so the Temple was built to honor Amun and Horace. But in the building of the Temple Si-Amun divined that there would be a day when the people needed to separate, in his wisdom the people built the great expanse below the Temple. It is this place that is the entrance to Shali Adrár to this very day.”

Bunched together in the amphitheater, Harry and I watched as the scenes behind our narrator changed to reflect the story as it was told. We had spent yesterday lazily shopping after arriving at the Oasis and were now enjoying a retelling of its history. The Haka was an informative, artful telling about the people of Shali Adrár.

“The descendants of our great Si-Amun eventually divined that the time had come to remove ourselves from the non magical community of Shali and create the city of magic known as Shali Adrár. From within the depths of the world we continued to thrive while war took hold in the outside. The council of Shali Adrár watched over the populace of Shali to take in any who proved themselves magical, so they might join us and learn our craft.”

The schools of Shali Adrár that were being shown behind her were places Harry and I had plans to visit later today. The subjects of divination were taught at an advanced level here. At least it was advanced compared to Hogwarts. Many in Britain, and some of Europe, had begun to believe that it was a wooly branch of magic. That it was inferior because it wasn’t as focused as transfiguration or as precise as potions.

The real problem was that there were so many forms of divination that it was up to each individual to figure out what their magic responded to best. It wasn’t really a task that teenagers might be up to, but the adults that should be helping them with their studies should be able to guide them towards what their magic preferred. Albus Dumbledore was one of those believers who thought only individuals capable of prophecy could divine, that it was useless to try and teach anyone else. Even before he became headmaster in the sixties, he seemed to be influencing the education at Hogwarts.

“It is the duty of the people of Si-Amun to teach those who have forgotten how to teach themselves. Many of the world, throughout history, forget that there are differences and distinctions in the varied subject of divination. They forget that most divination is dependent magic. Dependent on caster. Dependent on reader. Dependent on subject. Dependent on person. They forget how much this influence can corrupt what is given to us through magic.”

My mother and her sister were both very adept at several forms of divination and had made sure that all of us, my siblings and cousin, received a basic education before we even turned eleven. Sometimes I believed this was because my mother thought one of us may inherit her skill. Sometimes I thought it was simply because she knew that the quality of divination education was going down hill even then. I never really asked before she died and neither of my wand wielding siblings had inherited the skill to her level.

There were many types of divination. They told us that divination really could use anything from flour to chicken bones or even smoke to divine. One person might do wonders with nephomancy, reading the clouds for knowledge. But that person’s sister might be better at lampadomancy, where they divine through a single flame. Or their cousin, well he might be better at bibliomancy. Even an augur needed some connection as they found the balance in the disciplines of astronomy, arithmancy, and runes. My mother and aunt had compared it to wands, everyone had a different wand because their magic was as unique as they were. It was the same with finding the right tool one could properly use for divining.

Though my mother had been capable of seeing much more than was normal for an average witch and could use many tools to the same degree, her favorite was always nephomancy. I had wonderful memories of laying out on the grass with her and interpreting the clouds for hours.

“They forget that everyone capable of magic can call upon it for divining,” she said as the images behind her swirled with the many types of divination. “Today our metropolis thrives as our city opens itself to more of its brothers and sisters in magic from all over the world. We share and encourage the sharing of magical knowledge so that our histories will not be forgotten.”

There was no question that they had thrived in the millennia since they broke off and founded this community. Far beneath the sleepy village of Siwa were buildings as tall as skyscrapers and acres of two or three story houses and shops that spread out for acres. Beyond the buildings there were farms, built and maintained by magic, that fed the whole populace and produced enough for the tourists as well. They had schooling in magical and muggle subjects from infancy to university levels. Their libraries were well stocked and their teachers were incredibly knowledgeable.

Some might wonder why the people of Shali Adrár were not a bigger influence on the rest of the magical world. It wasn’t that the rest of the world did not believe that the people here were more capable than others in the arts of divination. It was because they were certain of it. The people of Shali Adrár walked a fine line with the rest of the world. So long as they continued their policy of non involvement with the rest of the world on politics and war, no one would attack them. The moment that they did become involved, any one of them, it was very likely that the oasis would be wiped from the map to ensure their divine arts could not be used against those in war. This was, perhaps, why they were so open to educating and sharing with outsiders. They wanted others to understand they were not the threat fear might make them out to be.

In addition to these fairly touristy intros to the history of Shali Adrár, the seminars at the school focused on the astoundingly long list of possible ways to divine. The one Harry and I had signed up for later would be an eye opening experience. It would also help create a foundation of trust and knowledge with Harry for when we shared the information about the prophecy. Harry deserved to know about the prophecy, but I was not going to just thrust that knowledge on an abused four year old. Regardless of how much magic he had been saturated in, he was still a child.

The restaurant we visited after our time at the amphitheater for the Haka was really more of an outdoor cooking area with seating and tables all around it. Though, what was outside when everything was underground?

The smell was amazing and we poked around before settling in with our little clay pots. There had been dozens of lamb heads roasting on the grills, it was a delicacy of the Berber cuisine, but the pots of tajine had drawn our attention. Rows and rows of little pots that were tall like urns, with little curls of handles on either side, were cooking on the grills beside the lamb.

A delicious steam filled with spices lazily drifted up to us when they uncovered our pots. Inside were lamb meats, fat, and brain mixed with preserved lemons, garlic, spices like cumin, and smen. Smen is made from clarified butter and salt that is left to ferment, it develops a strong taste and smell. They poured the tajine from the pots into big plates set before us, almost as big as a platter, the delicious food spreading out across its expanse.

Harry dug right in with confidence, taking a piece of the bread and dipping it in the flavorful juices before grabbing a chunk of meat and scarfing it. I laughed a bit, he must have been hungry, but he just smiled. He reminded me more of James in that moment than Lily, his eyes sparkling with mischief and a sweet smile gracing his face.

Tomorrow we would explore the interesting historical sites around Siwa, and tonight we would go to our seminar on divination, but right now we were going to shop. The Haka had said that the magical market place of Shali Adrár could be a maze more confusing than the shopping districts of Egypt on the non magical side. This was done on purpose centuries ago to fool anyone who would pierce the secrecy of the magical community. The invaders would be forever lost. After the second World War, however, the Siwa Oasis became a tourist attraction and the magical community followed. There were now magical maps that one could follow available at most of the shops and lodgings of Shali Adrár.

After our meal we grabbed one of the brightly colored maps and took off for a walk in the part of the market place we had already passed. We stopped a time or two to admire something in windows or at stalls before we were back in the market place.

“Look at this rug,” Harry said in Italian as he held up a runner that had bold diamond shaped patterns.

“Do you want to spend your allowance for today on the rug?”

“No, it’s just neat. But what would a rug be for allowance? Fun or Educational?”

“I suppose that would depend what you could learn from it.”

We stopped in a large apothecary to replenish our supplies. I gave serious thought to gathering more supplies than just those to make the developing solution. The holiday we were on was making it a bit difficult to study up for my license and certification. I was barely holding my own with all of the letters going between myself and Master Clinkscale, which is why I decided to wait a little while longer before doing any actual brewing. The few times I had been able to sit down with a book or journal would need to be enough until we were back in Britain. Though I did get some of the more curious specimens under preservation charms that I would definitely be experimenting with once we were home.

We were very interested in any divination materials they might have as it seemed reasonable to assume that Shali Adrár would be the best place to find authentic and accurate works on the subject. Later we would look for artifacts to help us on our journey after we had learned more at the seminar. The bookstores made up whole blocks in the market space and provided information on nearly every subject.

The bookstore that we spent most of our time in was geared towards the divining arts, but had a good selection of other subjects. Harry and I had a great deal of fun going through the truly massive bookshop. We found dozens of books that we deemed worthy of looking through for information and instruction in for divination. We also found books on magizoology, herbology, and history that sparked our interest. I found a few more books on children’s psychology and parent rearing that seemed more acceptable than I had found elsewhere.

While Harry was busy looking through some of the fictional children’s books the owner and I were working to find books on ancient rituals, death magic, blood magic, soul magic, and the magics of other beings and creatures. I needed books that would teach me about the things Harry might be subjected to and would help me prepare myself to defend him. I also needed a book that mentioned horcruxes outright so that I could realistically bring it up with the team at Gringotts. My plan was still to use my insider position to make it appear that important objects to Voldemort were known, but I needed to pretend to not have the knowledge of horcruxes. Most of these books would be considered restricted or outright illegal in Magical Britain, but I wasn’t really worried about it. Who was going to check a squib's mostly muggle home for prohibited magical books?

Most forms of divination required materials that were imbued with magic in some way to enhance the odds of actually divining anything. We learned at our late afternoon seminar that the objects needed to be made in such a way that the maker of the object did not imbue them with their own magic. Objects like dice or cards needed to be carefully crafted so that they were “clean” until they reached the user. Objects such as candles were more difficult to keep clean and would be much less expensive for the diviner to make themselves than rely on those crafted by others.

We had gotten wonderfully lost in a new bookstore while looking for divining objects that might interest Harry. The owner of the bookstore, Yimlul, suggested that we go and meet his cousin several stalls down and to the right to pick up the materials for divination. Harry was very excited about this prospect and we wandered over to the new shop, our extendable bags stuffed with books.

“Hello and welcome friends,” a deep voice greeted as we walked into the dimly lit shop. A tall man dressed in white, except for a tan cotton vest, appeared from the shadows behind the counter. Harry, apparently completely over any residual shyness, smiled up at him. “Welcome to my shop. You may call me Ziri!”

Harry gave a little childish giggle at how gregarious the man was being, but introduced himself in Arabic. “Hi Ziri, I’m Matteo and this is my grandmother.”

“Ah, you speak good Arabic. That is a nice thing. It is nice to meet you Matteo and Matteo’s grandmother.”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you too,” I laughed. “Please call me Sofia. Your cousin suggested we come see you after we depleted his store of a few dozen books on divination.”

“We did get other things! Like on history and animals and things like that too.”

“Good, good. It is best to know a great many things. Though if one has talent in a particular area, it should be explored to its fullest. Do either of you divine?” He looked between us with a wide smile.

“My mother was very talented, though myself and my siblings never inherited it to such a level. Most of the talent seems to have gone to my cousin, who is very talented. Matteo’s parents passed away when he was just a baby and were both masters of other fields with very high distinction. Neither seemed to be as talented in divination as my mother was, but that doesn’t mean little Matteo won’t have the ability.”

“No, no of course. We find in Shali Adrár that the talent can fluctuate, especially if a person is very gifted in another way. I have a cousin who is simply amazing with all types of plants, but couldn’t read a thing no matter how hard he tried. But then we realized he was looking in all the wrong places!” he said with a chuckle.

Ziri gave Harry a mock stern look and pointed at him, “It is very important to try many different ways of reading the signs before deciding that one has no talent at all. Almost every being of magic can divine to some degree, just sometimes it gets overshadowed by great talent in another area.” He gave an easy shrug and moved out from behind the counter. “Let me show you all the different materials I have to help with that.”

By the time we set out for dinner from Ziri’s shop we had spent a large amount of money on several different tools to work divination with and Harry had used his educational allowance to buy a small divining bag with clean rune stones. Runes were really just a language and once Harry learned the language he could use cleromancy, sometimes called casting, to try and divine. Cleromancy was often done with stones or dice, but by putting runic forms into the stones one could imbue the stones with an even greater amount of magic. We learned in the seminar that this was believed to give a better, or sometimes a more personal, casting.

After a few more shops we stopped at the lamb pits for our evening meal. Every day they put entire lambs into a large pit with embers and covered it with sand, by this time the first lambs into the pits had roasted to perfection. They were just beginning to take it out as we arrived. Harry held my hand and watched with avid interest as it took three men to haul them out and place them on the butcher’s table. We watched as the butcher began his expert carving, quick and efficient, and two young boys on either side separated the pieces into different piles. I gave Harry a nudge and took out my camera, he posed as they brought another lamb out of the pit behind him.

We continued on to a table to enjoy a feast of lamb and rice in a rich sauce. The whole of the lamb was used, the meats of the face were considered a delicacy. I had a quip about Harry getting cheeky with me when he bravely tried some lamb cheek, but remembered that the Dursleys often used food to cause harm to the children under their care and wisely said nothing. I suspected that the treatment of food would be a sensitive subject that I would have to be especially aware of for years to come.

12 February 1985

The small population of Siwa made the town above the Shali Adrár feel empty after the cramped excursions into Alexandria and the bustling city below the desert, though both of us enjoyed our morning walk to the Temple of the Oracle.

The temple had been a focal point for this region well into Greek and Roman times. It was famously visited by Alexander the Great where the Oracle proclaimed him as a son of Zeus, giving him the birthright needed to be able to rule over Egypt. The most interesting thing about the people of Siwa was the higher than normal level of divination abilities, so maybe it wasn’t all political nonsense but we’d never know for sure.

Hidden within the Temple of Amun are many halls that run along the main chamber. This was done partly for effect, a voice could easily and eerily carry from the hall into the main chamber allowing the oracle to be heard without being seen. It was also done to disguise the entrance that lead down into the magical community of Shali Adrár. The guide book had stated the magical community began separating itself earlier than any still existing community in the whole world and suggested that it was due to a foreseen conflict without ever actually stating that as fact. Our Haka the day before gave some confirmation of this idea, but still didn’t really go into any depth about what it was that they were separating for so early. On coming war? Dangers to the magical people in particular? No answers were really given.

When we arrived at the oasis after our long trip from Alexandria, we found the entrance after some careful prodding and made our way down a large curved staircase of rough hewn stone. The light was blue there and I looked up to see that there were little cut gems patterned in the walls that glowed with an ethereal light. At the end of the stairs we encountered a great door that our book said only someone of magic could open. I had Harry open it out of an abundance of caution, the book didn’t say what would happen if the person didn’t have a great deal of magic.

Leaving the underground magical city was much the same as entering it. We walked through the main bazaar, the only part to not require a map, and made our way to the Temple. Harry opened the door and we slowly made our way up the stairs surrounded by an ethereal blue light. Once we reached the Temple the brighter light had us squinting. Shali Adrár was properly lit, giving it an almost outdoor quality, but going from the blue light into the sunlight was difficult.

The Mountain of the Dead, or Gebel al-Mawta, was our first stop in the very early hours of Tuesday morning.

The original tomb in Gebel al-Mawta was for Si-Amun and built in the third century BC with lavish decorations, at least compared to the other tombs within the necropolis. The non magical history states that not much is known of Si-Amun as he held no official titles and that he must have been a merchant to afford such a fine tomb. The magical history tells us that Si-Amun was well known for his skills in divination, something that both his children inherited and then passed on through their lines. He was the first to settle in Siwa and paved the way for prosperity and safety for the people that settled there with him.

Many images were still intact along the walls of the tomb. Again we saw how the three cultures of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman combined in the art work. We also noticed that Si-Amun was depicted with a staff, much like those magic wielders we had seen during our tour in Alexandria. The Haka had proclaimed that Si-Amun helped even his modern day descendents as many had fled to the tombs for shelter when the Italians began their invasion of Libya, Palestine, and Egypt during World War II.

It was still fairly early in the morning as we ate our balboula and orange juice at a café looking out over the desert under a brightly colored cloth shade. Served in a painted ceramic bowl the balboulas were a creamy type of porridge. Harry and I had chosen to drizzle our balboula with honey and oil before adding just a little bit of flaky salt that was local to Siwa. It was the cool season in the desert and that made it orange season. The fragrant juice that we drank had just been squeezed from freshly picked oranges. I may have promised Harry that he could grow orange trees in the suitcase if Avira told him it would work properly, the taste was so wonderful that he wanted to have fresh orange juice all the time. She would adore the information we had picked up about how the people of Shali Adrár keep such a large agricultural industry going in a contained area.

After our meal Harry and I checked out the lake. The salt lakes of Siwa have a higher water to salt ratio than even the famed Dead Sea. This quarry had only just opened for tourists and we were both looking forward to it. Harry and I had worked with the pond a little bit in the suitcase to get him comfortable with water, but the high ratio of salt in this lake meant that it would be even easier for him to float. I thought the experience would both be interesting and educational for him.

When we arrived we had the lake completely to ourselves. Amongst the mountains of excavated salt we carefully stepped into waters that were so clear and azure that one would think we were in the Caribbean instead of Zeitoun Lake, the largest of the salt lakes. I took a few pictures after we quickly changed into our swimwear.

“Okay, I’m going to get in here and then you can just walk right out to me.”

Harry nodded as I stepped into the crystal blue waters. There was a bit of a ledge set into the lake, the water only came up to my knees before we could see it get very deep.

“Alright,” I said as I held my arms out to him. For Harry the water would come up to about his chest, which was slightly deeper than what we had practiced with so far. I made sure that he understood that the intense salt ratio in the water basically made it a solid so there was no chance he wouldn’t be able to float if he tried. He was still tense though, his little hands curling and uncurling in tight little fists. His shoulders were hunched and his jaw was set.

And then he almost slammed into me because he thought he needed a running start.

I caught him though, coughing and laughing about a broken rib he gave me. He calmed down and smiled.

We spent nearly an hour floating around in the salt lake before drying off and getting dressed. Harry had eventually felt comfortable floating on his own and had even allowed me to take a ridiculous number of pictures with him in various poses in and around the water.

“For my room at home!” he said as he encouraged me to take another one.

“But we need to send one to Clinkscale too!” he cried as he begged me to take one with as much of the water in the picture as possible.

The poor boy had somehow inherited my need to take a million pictures. I was so happy.

Hungry and tired we made our way back to the suitcase for lunch and a nap. Though we had aspirations of trying our hand at making some of the dishes we had eaten so far, both of us were too tired. After a quick shower to clean off most of the salt, we sat on the couch in the living room eating fish fingers and an easy pasta salad. We were both starting to nod off by the time the dishes were cleaned and put away.

After our nap we explored more of the Shali Adrár before our next seminar at the school. During the Haka we had learned that the name of the magical community’s city was taken from the name of the old town of Siwa where the non magical community once lived. The old town Shali was composed of mud salt bricks that had basically melted after a massive three day rainstorm and been abandoned by the people above in the 1920s. The word adrár meaning mountain suggested that it was inside of a mountain, but it was actually quite deep underground. The guide book posed the theory that it might have been a figurative or metaphorical mountain. The Haka did not elaborate.

13 February 1985

The drive to the Farafra Oasis was about an hour and a half if we didn’t bother with roads, we decided on a few things to keep us busy before we packed everything away and checked out of the campsite. Though Farafra had few places of any historical interest to me, it did have unique hot springs and easy access to a strange stretch of desert. Since we were skipping staying at Farafra for the night in order to make up time lost to the deshret lice, we went directly to the snow white portion of the desert.

Stepping out of the pleasantly lit Carriage, it took us a few minutes to adjust our eyes to the brightness of the desert. We had spent our time reading in the comfort of a space about the size of an average living room, stepping out of the artificial light into the brilliance of sunlight across a white desert was disconcerting. Stretched before us was a desert as far as our eyes could see, but unlike a normal sandy desert this one had odd protrusions made of milky white calcium. The desert was made up of clouds, great big whisps and fluffy towers that almost looked like they could move across the pale landscape.

We left the Carriage out while we explored the dunes. Drifting away from it we pointed to different chalk formations trying to determine their shape.

A mushroom!
A sphinx!
An ice cream cone!
A hawk!

This whole area of desert was once submerged under the sea and the amazing rock formations made of pure white, smooth shapes were created by erosion mostly through sandstorms. Amazingly, some of the chalky boulders still had things like shells and shark teeth embedded into them. We took a picture of Harry pointing out a particularly fearsome tooth that was jutting out of a monolith.

At one of the shops in Shali Adrár we had come upon a useful tripod that could attach to any camera. I specifically hadn’t asked for a stick to be somehow integrated into the camera, but came to regret that as there were very few pictures of us together. I wanted to be more a part of my own life, I didn’t want to always be the one behind the camera anymore. The longer we spent on this trip, the more I felt like I wanted to change things like that. So when we found a magical tripod that could direct the camera without additional magic I latched onto it. The shopkeeper had helped me to teach the tripod which button to push as well as teach the tripod a preset word for when to take the picture. Now Harry and I had pictures of both of us on what looked like solid clouds.

After a long time of having fun exploring the White Desert, Harry and I packed ourselves back into the Carriage to journey on to the Dakhla Oasis. We still had the Kharga Oasis to visit before we began our voyage on the Nile. The Nile cruise was the last thing to do in Egypt, though it included many stops of its own, and we could not be late.

It was afternoon by the time we reached Dakhla and we were both hungry. We needed to reach Kharga by that evening so there were no planned convenient campsites to pitch our suitcase. We wandered a bit until we smelled cooking meat and spices, following it we came upon a kebab cart.

“Food on a stick is the best food ever invented,” Harry said as we carefully ate piece of tender lamb from wooden skewers.

“It isn’t just meat that comes on sticks either, if you think about it.”

“Really?” he whispered in awe and delight of such a simple fact.

“Yes. Umm, in Japan they have these syrup soaked donut things called dango that are on sticks. In the Philippines they take bananas, deep fry them in sugar and then put them on bamboo skewers. They do that with potatoes too. In China they have fruits that are on sticks with a hard candy coating on them… and if you think about it we do food on a stick that isn’t meats too.”

Harry raised a brow at me while he rearranged his skewered vegetables, trying to eat them before they fell off.

“Toffee apples.”

“Tah-huh,” the over dramatic gasping was followed up with throwing his head back as he rolled his eyes. I hid a smirk, that wasn’t James or Lily coming through. Harry was being just Harry, without any worry of something bad happening to him. It was wonderful to see. It was also hilarious to watch a little boy roll his eyes so hard he nearly fell over.

We found our way to Deir el-Hagar, or the Monastery of Stone. It is a sandstone temple that was known as Set-whe, or the Place of Coming Home, in ancient times. It had been buried in sand for a long time and was uncovered and restored. There are plans for their local council to reconstruct some of the temple, but nothing more than that was listed in our guide book.

This temple was a festival temple rather than a cult temple and was dedicated mainly to the Theban Triad and to Thoth. It was started during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, his cartouche can be see in the sanctuary. This temple was built to encourage settlers and they have found villages, irrigation works, and farmsteads surrounding the area of the temple.

It was more impressive than what was left at Siwa, but not nearly as impressive as what we had seen in Giza or Memphis. Despite it’s appearance as Egyptian it was made solely under Roman rule. The plaster we could see was painted and very pretty and the inscriptions were wide ranging, but it was the graffiti that seemed to actually be the most interesting part of the temple. Travelers from all over had added their signatures to the temple.

In the temenos wall of the sanctuary there were many Greek inscriptions and graffiti. But when the travelers of the 19th century came to Deir el-Hagar the sand had covered most of the temple. The names of those travelers were carved into the high column and the walls of the temple’s porch. A testament to the human need to say, “I was here.”

We returned to the Carriage to make our way to the Kharga Oasis a little disappointed in the temple. Very few people even went into the Monastery of Stone which made it seem precious and unique. Instead the low number of visitors was more because the recovery and restoration had not made as great a progress as places we had visited that had larger numbers. In the decades to come more places of historical significance would be restored and reopened attracting tourists and historians, but for now the world was still learning to appreciate these places of history.

It's an odd thing to think that in a place like Egypt that has such monuments to ancient history prominently on display that there are places like Deir el-Hagar. Places that have been neglected or forgotten. Perhaps there are even places that are lost in the sands that have been completely lost to memory. Something that can never be recovered because there were no stories passed down about them. No one left to tell them.

14 February 1985

The Kharga Oasis was a bustling village compared to the other oases we had explored. While Siwa had perhaps the same population, it seemed sleepy and relaxed. Here it seemed everyone had something important to do and they were always in the midst of doing it. When we arrived we had gotten into the hidden village and relaxed for a time in our suitcase at the campsite. I was able to finally send that long letter to Clinkscale.

Since we were mostly back on schedule, I made sure that Harry knew we should sleep in a little more in the morning. We would still leave to explore just after breakfast, but it wouldn’t be a rush to be early. The Kharga Oasis and our next stop at Aswan would be much more sedate than the rushing we had been doing lately.

The camp was part of a hidden village near the Temple of Hibis. While Shali Adrár had felt very much like a small city, Irp was more of a farming village that had a sizable market. The areas around the temple were incredibly fertile and while both communities took advantage of this to grow fruit bearing trees, they differed in what they did with the fruit. The non magical community sold the fruits in their markets and exported them to other places, it made a nice profit and was well tended. The magical community, however, took the fruits then sold a percentage of them in their market and the rest went to creating wine using the ancient magical methods that had been lost to most of the world.

As Harry and I wandered through the village in the morning we saw that, between the fruiting trees, were wooden trellises that created archways. All along the arches were grape vines, new grapes just budding here and there. We were invited by a farmer in these fields to look at the wood of the trellises more closely.

“You see just here,” he said as he pointed to small cut designs made into the wood. “This is old work. Each year we take them down and bath them in the right mixtures, we pour our energies into them, and then under the light of a full moon we put them back into place. One whole lunar cycle later, we reattach the vines– which were being steadied by the trees– and then we pour our energies into them again. It is less a spell and more of a prayer. That is what makes the grapes magic. And because we have the fruits here while we do this, the fruits get caught in the good magic too. We have been doing this for many centuries, many, many generations have tended these same trellises.”

In a small shop in the village wines were available for purchase. They were rather expensive, but it was unlikely that I would ever again travel to this ancient place. I decided to purchase three different amphoras of wine, the small rack with cushioning charms was free of charge. The ceramic amphoras with black writing down their shoulders were not spelled against harm as they believed magic too close for too long near the wines would effect the flavor. The ink read like a modern wine label with the name and location of the estate, the name of the winemaker, and even quality notes. The brochure the shopkeeper gave me said that the year of the pharaoh that was inscribed on the bottle was a continuance of tradition.

The people of Irp completely disregarded that there was no longer a pharaoh after the deaths of the Ptolemaic pharaohs and the take over by Rome. It was decided, in the round about way that such things seem to happen, that there was simply a new pharaoh. It is unclear who it was that initially decided the new pharaoh was Weha, but everyone went along with it. The new Pharaoh Weha had a serekh instead of the newer cartouche and within its palatial box was set a scorpion with two tails ready to sting. Since then anytime that there has been a great upheaval there was a new pharaoh. Beside the new serekh they will list the year of the new pharaoh’s reign that a wine was made. Such as the 22nd year in the reign of pharaoh Weha.

Leaving the village we made our way to the nearby temple to explore.

Darius the First, a Persian ruler, originally built the temple in honor of the Egyptian gods Amun and Osiris. To date it is recognized as the largest of all the temples that had been built in Egypt during the Persian rule. It is believed to have been built on top of the ruins of the city of Hebet and that the ruins of this city are mostly under the crops nearby. Our trusty magical guide book informed us that though the larger districts of Hebet eventually were abandoned and the area reformed, the village of Irp was the last of its remnants. In the ancient languages Hebet meant plough and Irp meant wine, giving more substance to the claims that the area was split in this manner long ago.

We were met by a large sandstone gateway almost five meters high after passing through the outer wall enclosure. Rows of small sphinx lined the walkway and on the inside of the gate was an ancient notice board of sorts. During Roman rule this had been added to educate those passing through on a variety of topics such as taxation, inheritance, the court system and rights of women.

As we ventured deeper into the temple we were astounded by its vastness. It was so tall and so large that it would be more comparable in size to one of the forts in Egypt than any of the much smaller temples that we had seen. On nearly every surface there seemed to be something carved, painted, or inscribed. It seemed that generations had imprinted beauty and luxury onto every part of the temple.

“Nona look at this! It’s Seth, just like we learned with the papyrus.”

“I remember,” looking at Harry’s excited face as he pointed out the blue figure conquering what was probably Anubis. “Would you like your picture next to it?”

We spent a couple hours in the temple and, after taking far too many pictures, had returned to the campsite to escape the midday sun. Back in the suitcase we ate roast chicken kebabs and planned out the rest of the afternoon.

“It will certainly be difficult getting used to the damp of home again after all this,” I mused as I picked at my vegetables.

“We’ll have sunshine inside, though, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Avira is making us gardens and exercise rooms and even a great big pool.”

“I want to put more veggies in my garden here when we get home.”

“As long as you take care of them that would be fine with me, but we’re going to have gardens on Wisteria so really think about it. Give it a month or two after we get there before you make a decision.”

“I will.”

He sounded very serious about it. I was hoping the houses would have enough for him that the suitcase wouldn’t feel like something he absolutely needed. It would provide him with a sort of safety blanket, just like the food in his room would give him a feeling of safety, but I hoped that he would never feel more comfortable in a suitcase than in the houses. There should be plenty of room for our small family.

“Good. Now I’m not particular tired today since we took it easy. How would you like to develop some more pictures? We took an awful lot.”

With his affirmative and plans to explore the Irp food scene we went to the room we were using as a lab and set up the lab in a box. After our time in Alexandria I had taken to popping out the packets of pictures when we went to a new place. Even though the packs would be considered filled at fifty pictures, I would pop whatever was in there out so that a new place wouldn’t wind up in the same pack. I was hoping that would be an easier system than the mess we had worked with before. Especially if Harry wanted to do more from the largest developing tray.

Right now we only had new pictures from the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Siwa, and the White Desert as I was not taking out the Kharga pictures until we had left the oasis. However, we hadn’t been able to finish the packs from before due to our lack of additional ingredients for the developing solution and had plenty to develop from older packs. As they finished developing Harry would very seriously take them to write the date, location, and who was in it on the back of each picture.

The lab and developing trays basically ran themselves and, with Harry busy, I was finally able to start researching the books I had found in Shali Adrár. Yimlul’s bookshop had proven a particularly bountiful adventure for all sorts of magics and interests for both Harry and myself. Though, as I wanted to be able to shift the Gringotts team into thinking about horcruxes instead of just a single errant soul leech, I started with the three books on soul magic before making my way through the others. Once I had a reasonable way to prove myself, I could simply vaguely remember that there had been interest in such a thing before the death of the Potters. That I could remember several objects of importance or places that were of interest, and we could begin our own quest to destroy the soul jars as effectively and quickly as possible.

It was a very soothing afternoon in the suitcase. The sound of Harry’s quill against the photographs, of the pages of my book when I turned them. Occasionally we would go back to the lab to move things around and gather more of the finished products. But most of the time was spent in a sort of happy, productive quiet. There was no tenseness in Harry as he worked. Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence. It was nice and I hoped that meant we were finally completely comfortable with each other.

In the early evening light, Irp seemed both the same as Shali Adrár and radically different. Magical fires glowed in different colors on top of high poles throughout the village and the fields. A colorful glow made all the more inviting by the music and laughter pouring out of every building. It reminded me of the place we had eaten at in Cairo, with tables set up so close to the street that it was more street party than restaurant.

As we walked through the rambunctious people, laughing and eating while they sang along to the music, Harry attempted to look everywhere and see everything with a wide smile on his face. He was holding my hand again. I was glad of it because of the crowds, even though the streets were several times wider than those we were used to back home. That he was willing to constantly initiate this small amount of physical contact was a wonderful sign. Even his nightmares had now decreased to simply being restless.

I had still reached out to Master Clinkscale in my letters about having a therapist available to him, with everything that was going on and was coming up we would perhaps all benefit from a little extra help. I still wasn’t sure what someone so young could speak about, but I was willing to give it a try. It had taken quite a few internal battles to get to this point, my feelings on therapy were extremely mixed. But I would never want children to suffer unduly when such a thing could potentially help them. Luckily, with all the safe houses Lily had set up we could have a therapist in a different country without worry and completely under Gringotts contract.

“THERE! THAT ONE!” came a rough shout from my elbow as I was dragged away.

“No need to shout, love,” I remarked in surprise as I reigned Harry in. “What is it about this one that makes it so interesting?”

“The sign says they’ve got a belly dancer!”

Hoping that he didn’t mistake my stifled laughter as a negative reaction to his enthusiasm, I let him lead me indoors. In the middle of the restaurant was a large square space for the dancer, all around it were low tables and cushions set slightly higher than the stage. We sat at one as close to the dancing area as we could and stared as the musicians set up along a back wall. There were low ceramic bowls surrounding the square that burned with the same colorful magic fire that we had seen outside and it added a fanciful play of light along the stage.

A young man came to greet us and we ordered a hearty meal. We nibbled on our pita and scooped up meats while we waited for the dancing to start. Musicians started playing after a while and we looked around to see where the dancer might come from.

The woman who took the stage was not the young, nubile barely dressed girl that I was expecting. Instead she was perhaps close to mid thirties and wearing a long gauzy green dress. It had wide bell sleeves that swept behind her and a long tunic down her center that was made of a veil material in russet with a shiny triangle of bronze ornaments. Along her hips, yellow and russet scarves shook with sparkling silver while she moved barefoot to the center of the stage. The fires from the floor reflected in the shimmer of gold around her ankle that matched the golden sequined band wrapped around her dark hair.

A slow tempo picked up from the darbuka and the fluted instruments followed. The woman made her way around the floor twisting and reaching, her hips at a faster tempo than her slow hands. The men began singing in deep long vocals, drums and lutes joining as she danced. The green sparkles along the bottom of her full length skirts were moving with her motions and catching in the magic of the lights around the stage.

One of the men joined her on the stage with his drum, a massive tambourine, and they danced in slow jolting movements. Back and forth, step, twist, a sweeping move that turned them around the length of the stage. Her layered, sparkling skirts flowing around her as they moved.

The tempo changed and the drumming became sharper. She removed the shimmering golden band of cloth from her hair, untwisting it into a straight glittering length that she held in front of her face as she took her small steps back and forth. The men singing in shouts of encouragement. She spun around on her toes with it as the man danced around her. The beat of the drum so sharp it sounded like an apparition cracking. She tossed her golden prop towards one of the musicians as her dancing became as sharp as the drum, before she stole the dancing man’s large tambourine to dance with instead and became more graceful.

She spun tight circles on her toes, reminding me of a ballerina, the drum a halo behind her head. When she brought the drum down, she controlled the beat. Each hit to her tambourine resulted in the jerking shake of her hips or shoulders. The flairs of her green sleeves swinging around her, glinting with each twirl. She forced the beat faster and faster, relinquishing her tambourine to one of the men while still spinning. The others drumming so fast it was almost a drum roll. The high strumming of the lute coming through as she spun out of the tight circle and her arms flowed like water as the rest of her stilled to the sounds of cheers from the musicians and the audience.

Harry and I were both too awed by the dance to do much more than clap, our mouths open and our eyes wide. That was not the semi cabaret burlesque show I had been expecting of a belly dance. The Khan El Khalili in Cairo had belly dancing costumes strung up in a multitude of colors in many of the shops, Harry had even commented on it when the bright colors had caught my eye. Those costumes looked nothing like this and I have to wonder if this dance was more traditional, less influenced by the Europeans who might have over sexualized it.

Our neglected food was still warm even though we had been watching the dance for nearly ten minutes. There must be some sort of warming charm embedded into the dishes or table. Neatly scooping up some more of the aromatic flavors on my piece of bread, I smiled at Harry who was remembering the food as well.

After several minutes of scooping up our food and talking about the entertainment, the lanterns hanging from the ceiling darkened. From the cheering of the crowd we assumed that meant that there was an encore performance. This time however a woman’s voice sung out a throaty reverberating sound along with the lute and woodwinds.

Two women emerged from the dark, both in skirts with many layers. Around their hips were a fringe and scarves with crystal decorations. The long sleeved cropped tops they wore also had decorations of a diagonal fringe made of beads that reached a point at their navel. One of the women was outfitted in white with clear crystals and a long white veil from her pale fan ended in an electric blue. The other was in a burnt orange outfit with amber and gold crystals and a long yellow veil from her tan fan ended in the same color as her skirts. Other than the colors their costumes were exactly the same.

The magic lights were brighter now with soft blues and reds thrown across the floor. The two women stepped in tight movements onto the stage while their bodies made slow undulating movements. The fans covered their faces and the long veils were over their shoulders as they rolled like waves further onto the floor.

Bending their bodies back and pulling another veiled fan from a hidden place, they moved in sync with each other as the mizmar sung along. In graceful arching steps, their skirts flowing around them, perfectly in time with each other. It seemed like a dance of orange and blue fire.

As they spun, a thin, high-sounding lute was quickly strummed. The twin flames spun faster and faster as they opened and closed the fans while dancing. Moving across the floor, they used the opened fan veils as wings, flaring and floating behind them, and their steps quickened. The flames appeared caught in an invisible wind.

More instruments joined in, more woodwinds and cymbals as the two worked their way back to the center of their stage. From off to the side more women joined them in identical costumes, whites and blues mixing with oranges and golds. Their numbers now up to six, it seemed that the women were dancing with each other while throwing fire back and forth to the other color in an intricate pattern.

They moved around and through each other, their fans popping veils of small flames at different levels. At their hips. At their chests. Over and again until the music sped back up and they moved into new positions. Short steps and waving fans, timed to the motions of their hips and the speed of the music.

They created a circle of their veil flames and with tiny steps turned the circle of fire, the woman’s song becoming louder in the music. It looked as if they spun by magic, so quick and deft was their foot work. White and blue flames raised high over head, while the orange and gold were fluttering at hip level.

Parting from the circle so that they were with their own colors, orange and gold on the left with white and blue on the right. They spiraled and danced on one side, skirts and veils flaring around them, and then were mirrored by their partners on the other side of the stage.

Somehow the music seemed even faster as they spun in tighter circles, concealing themselves with fans and veils. Pairing themselves off they closed their fans, tightening their veils into sleek lengths. The percussions of the music hit faster and louder, the thin veils whipping through the air like hot serpents before being opened again to wildly flare their colors. The hips of the six women were moving in time with the percussion, with each hit their hips moved in sync.

They came together again in smooth steps that seemed unreal, to form a long line in the center of the stage. Their fans spreading flame on either side, before spinning out and away from each other. Circling, spinning they danced back into a single line again. Waving their veiled fans while taking small steps to the left or right, creating even greater movement.

The percussion died out as the strings livened the music, the women parting to spin amongst their own colors again. As the music sped up again each yellow and red dancer found a blue and white partner and they spun in to each other. Eventually, their veils thrown up into the air each pair back to back ended the performance with fans touching.

The room exploded with cheers and shouts. Harry and I joined in, clapping encouragement to the marvelous dancers. The ladies bowed and left the stage, the lights going back to their normal glow. We ate the rest of our dinner in stunned amazement. I certainly had never expected something like that for a belly dance performance either.

After enjoying such a lively evening meal we went back to our campsite and packed everything up. We were going to Aswan, but first a short detour to see the Temple of Dush. Barely a thirty minute drive south in the Carriage, Harry and I dozed on our way there. In ancient times the city of Kysis surrounded the temple which is dedicated to Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates.

It dates back to the Roman Period and was both a religious and military center that was on the route of the caravans crossing the desert. It was a border town strategically placed at the intersection of five desert tracks and was one of the southern gateways to Egypt It was begun by the Roman emperor Domitian and further expanded under Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.

The complex was an odd and interesting place. It reminded me of the mud brick ruins we had seen in the old town of Siwa. This was because it looked though these ruins hadn’t simply worn away, but were melted by the elements. There was still interesting inscriptions along interior walls, partial columns and walls dotting the landscape, and arches that remained. But it all seemed as though it was washed away. No color, nothing felt solid.

Once this place was a massive complex, but to my untrained eye it felt like little more than a folly in the desert. Especially compared to the grandness of the Temple of Hibis in the Kharga Oasis, this one seemed to fold in on itself. Perhaps that was because of it’s difference in use. The Temple of Hibis was one of festivals and harvest. Where as here it was to make a stand at a vulnerable point in the crossroads.

It was such a contrast to where we had just been.

Harry and I took a few pictures, but both of us decided that was enough for the day and we made our way back to the Carriage. Aswan awaited us.

15 February 1985

After our visit to the Temple of Dush, we had arrived in Aswan fairly late in the evening and gone straight to bed. We had a spot at a small campsite until our river cruise started up. The cruise itself would include some tours of Aswan, but Harry and I had plans to visit things not on their itinerary.

Our first stop very early in the morning was the High Dam of Aswan, though as a place of such strategic importance there wasn’t really a tour. We had to carefully turn off many of the enchantments and features of the Carriage in order to get through multiple military checks. It wouldn’t do for them to catch us on some equipment the enchantments didn’t take into account and not see us being checked by the personnel on the dam itself.

The Nile River has always gone through flood and drought seasons. In 1898 a dam was built to help meet the needs of Egypt. This Low Dam was considered an astonishing achievement at the time it was built, but it was kept low due to conservation concerns. In the following decades the dam was raised twice, but still could not meet the growing irrigation needs.

In the 1950s, after a revolution overthrew the monarchy of Egypt, there were plans for a new dam but the problem became funding such an extensive construction. And the funding became more about politics and military might than about the irrigation and electrical needs of the Egyptian people. Between the governments of the UK, the US, and the USSR, and the new Egyptian government that was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser there was a continuous back and forth about how funding for other things might effect how much they were willing to invest in the High Dam.

In the end, Nasser made the bold move to nationalize the Suez Canal Company which was a private company with mostly British and French investors. He planned to use the revenues generated by the canal to help fund construction of the new dam, but it led to significant military conflicts. At the time they called it the Suez War, the UK, France, and Israel seized both the Suez canal and the Sinai. Forty ships were sunk in the canal while it was blocked. The three allies had made the canal useless.

Unfortunately for many of the governments that were involved in this crisis, most of the people in their countries did not support a war over a shipping canal. There were protests in Britain over the invasion, sending in paratroopers and trying to strong-arm the foreign government. Talk shows angrily debated the ridiculous maneuvers. The US threatened seriously damaging the British financial system by selling their government bonds. The USSR supported Nasser in his plans. Between the USSR and the US, as well as pressures elsewhere, the rest of the nations involved were forced to withdraw.

It was a massive loss of face for the British government.

In the end British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned, the Canadian external affairs minister Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace prize for his work in proposing the creation of an emergency force and the resulting cease fire in the United Nations, those UNEF Peacekeepers then policed the Egyptian and Israeli border, and the whole thing might have influenced the USSR in their relations with Hungary. It was a big deal at the time and it absolutely changed things all over the world.

Then the dam itself had controversies attached to it. Over 1,000 people died during the construction of the High Dam. More than 100,000 Nubians who lived along the banks of the Nile were forced from their homes. And 22 historical monuments were moved to avoid the flooding, though not all could be so systematically broken down and reconstructed elsewhere. Under the waters there are still archeological sites.

It’s total cost was 450,000,000 Egyptian Pounds by 1970. Economist say that it recovered that amount by mitigating the effects of the floods in 1964 and 1973 as well as the droughts that started in 1972 and in 1983. It also allowed for electricity to reach outer villages for the first time.

The High Dam of Aswan was not exactly a beautiful temple, but stretching out beside it was Lake Nasser. A glittering blue expanse, the lake was a beautiful jewel of the Nile.

Though we took a few pictures at the dam, the monument had a height that allowed for more impressive photos. It was made to honor the friendship between the governments of Egypt and the USSR and was a great place to see far out across the manmade lake.

“Okay, all set.” I turned back to Harry who was on the edge of the circle. We posed for a few photos with the lake in the background, the tripod taking the actual pictures. There weren’t many tourists at the monument, but it was the best place to get a picture of us in front of the lake. The sun was just rising in its rosy colors, a golden hour to take our pictures.

“I don’t understand,” Harry said once we were back in the Carriage. He was reading the little brochure we had picked up on the dam’s history and comparing it to pamphlets he snagged about other places in Aswan. “They just picked up the whole place and moved it?”

We were on our way to Abu Simbel, about an hour and a half from Aswan. It was one of the many archaeological sites that had been moved because of the dam.

“Yup. It’s much higher up now and won’t be affected by any of the flooding.”

“But it’s a mountain,” he remarked, incredulously. “And they weren’t using magic right? How do you move a whole mountain without magic?”

“You’d be amazed at all the things that can be done without magic. In this case, I think that they didn’t move the entire mountain though. I think they just removed the biggest parts of the exterior and interior before putting them in and around a manmade dome. It’s still super impressive though.”

His face was scrunched while he thought hard, it was always an adorable thing to see on him.

“They just lifted up a statue that is,” he checked his pamphlets, “twenty meters tall and moved it to a higher place?”

“Well, it was a little more complicated than that because they didn’t want to break anything beyond repair. Basically they carved it all up like a jigsaw puzzle, moved it to where they wanted it to be, and then put it back together.”

“Because they wanted water?”

“Water. Money. Life,” I countered. “More control over the water meant that they could have better crops and have a greater amount of area having higher yields in those crops. Then they sell the crops for money. With more control of the water the people were less affected by the droughts and flooding, which would have made them sick and probably destroyed property.”

“hMmm, the gifts of the Nile,” Harry said in a low murmur.

When we reached the site of Abu Simbel Harry had to be pulled away from his reading with promises that there was plenty of time to read more today. In fact I didn’t really have anything planned beyond seeing this site. Our whole time in Aswan was going to be incredibly relaxed and the next day and a half of sightseeing in Aswan would be part of the Nile cruise tour. All we had to do today was make sure to get to our dahabiya on the Nile at the right time this afternoon.

It was only the promise of seeing the massive complex that really got him moving.

With the Carriage parked away we continued up to the Abu Simbel complex. The complex included the well known Great Temple dedicated to Ramses II and the Small Temple which was dedicated to his chief wife Queen Nefertari.

We stood at the water’s edge looking up at the impressive statutes of gods sitting along the outside of the Great Temple.

“It’s bigger than like all the other ones. It’s bigger than a castle.”

“I don’t know about bigger than a castle, but it is much bigger than all the other statues we’ve seen I think. Not as tall as the pyramids though.”

“Not as tall as the pyramids, but the pyramids didn’t have statues.”

“That’s true. What’s better? Bigger with no statues or being just big but having statues?”

“Definitely statues,” Harry replied sagely. “The pyramids had cool architecture, but they didn’t do more than that really. This is cool architecture and more.”

We both nodded our heads in agreement to such a wise statement.

We moseyed back towards the tours sign post, we had paid for a group tour of the site. Standing beside the sign for the tours Harry and I chatted in English with a few couples and a family who were waiting as well. We had spent quite a bit of time doing things on our own and it felt difficult to interact with people after having been in a bit of isolation for so long. Even the few tours we had taken previously, we purposely tried not to interact too much. This was mostly a safety precaution, but on the upcoming cruise we would be in close quarters again with other people and I wanted us to be a little better prepared for social interactions.

“Hello, hello,” a voice called to us, “I am Milad and I will be giving the ten o’clock tour of the twin temples.”

We all smiled up at the tall man in a galabeya and I took Harry’s hand in mine, a little worried he would get separated as we toured the complex.

After he finished counting us, he motioned our way down the path.

“This is the way for the tour. Abu Simbel is the name of this town,” he started. A wide well finished path wound its way around hills of sand towards the lake where Harry and I had just been, we ambled down towards it with Milad walking half faced towards the group. “So this town it is called Abu Simbel. Abu means Father and Simbel is the name of the first man who came here in the ancient times. In front of you is the Lake Nasser. Lake Nasser is the biggest manmade lake in all of the world. It’s created by the dam, the High Dam in Aswan. So this lake is about 500 kilometer in length, 350 kilometer in Egypt and 150 kilometer in Sudan. This is the best place for fishing in the whole of Egypt, but due to the many, many crocodiles living inside it is forbidden to swim there.”

He smiled widely as he motioned jaws closing with his hands. The children laughed a bit. The French speaking family had three children with them, the oldest was twelve and the youngest was Harry’s age. They had naturally gravitated towards Harry during the walk, but he kept me close in his shyness.

“There is a Great Temple and there is another one called the Small Temple. The Great Temple, it was built by Ramesses II for himself as a god. So Ramesses he built four statues only for himself in the façade of the Great Temple. And he built another temple near to his temple, but just for his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari.”

He paused for a moment and turned towards the group a little more with a mock serious look on his face.

“Queen Nefertari should not be confused with Nefertiti, wife of King Akhenaton. Nefertari was the wife of Ramesses II. She was from Nubia. She was a very, very beautiful woman. And the king loved her so this is the reason he built the Small Temple for her. And Nefertari it means ‘the most beautiful lady has come,’” smiling Milad turned back to his walk.

“Ramesses II was married around 68 times. Whoa, he must be lucky. He must be a strong. He had 120 boys and 83 girls. Busy man,” he laughed with a shake of his head. “Maybe he’s my great great great grandfather, nobody knows.”

All of us laughed at the joke, but the adults smirked knowing smiles to each other over the children.

“He ruled Egypt for 67 years. When he died he was 94 and this was unusual in that time.”

That was surprising to hear. The average muggle didn’t live that long even with all the advances being made in medicine. It made me wonder if he had some magic.

“Our two temples were discovered at the beginning of 19th century, before that time heaps of sand had hidden them from the view. In 1813 a traveler called Ludwig saw a large uh stone faces, they seem to be coming out of the sand. In 1817 the sand was taken away then the temple and the statue appeared – it was discovered by Giovanni Belzoni, he was Italian.”

“This is a shortcut,” he said. We were on the walkway that went down towards Lake Nasser, but Milad was branched off to the right where a path had been worn into sand and stone by hundreds of feet.

“But why did King Ramesses the Great choose this part of Nubia for such a splendid temple? There are many different reasons, but the most important one it was the gold. More than 80 percent of the gold of ancient Egypt came from this land, from Nubia. So maybe Ramesses he want to catch the Nubian gold in his hands. So the pharaoh’s land called Nubia and that’s mean the land of the gold,” he said as we came around the mound on our beaten path to the expanse of Lake Nasser.

The lake is truly beautiful. A deep blue that shines in the sunlight against the backdrop of Egypt. We begin walking towards it as he continues with the tour.

“Look at the lake,” Milad exclaimed as he waved over towards the lake. “This was the old location of the two temples. You know these two temples and the mountain had been moved from the old place. The old place was just down below there, about 200 meters from this location now. And the middle beach of the old place about 65 meters deep under the water.”

We reached the walkway again and took a look around. Harry was mesmerized by the massive temple that we had caught a peak of earlier when we explored nearer to the Nile. Closer to the temples now, gave us an even greater understanding of just how massive they were.

“The water of Lake Nasser covered all this area our Egyptian government with UNESCO tried to save our two temples and cut it into big boxes and rebuild it here,” Milad made motions with his hands of great big cubes being lifted from the area where the lake was towards where the temples now stand. “I mean this is original temple, but all the mountain behind this is an artificial mountain, man-made mountain. They built a huge concreted dome to carry as the mountains and then they started cut the original mountain from the original place and resulted here.”

Gathering us closer, we started walking more towards the temples. “The work takes four years from 1964 until 1968 and it cost about 36 million American dollars.”

As we got closer to the Great Temple he explained what we are and are not allowed to do. This is pretty common in historic sites and museums to try and cut down on the wear and tear. Some pigments are very sensitive to these high level lights too, and they also take into account how the use of cameras will disrupt the museum. Luckily my camera works on magic and has been enchanted to not create any disruptions.

“The system here in Abu Simbel is that we cannot do the tour inside, and there is no flash photography. But we will stand out here and I will tell you of the Great Temple.”

Milad turned towards the Great Temple and begins, “Okay, look at the façade of the Great Temple. Each statue runs 20 meters high. The second one was destroyed by earthquake it was happening in 27BC. And there is many smaller statues between the leg and under the feet. This representing some of the members of the royal family of Ramesses the Great or royal children. And all the names of these members of royal family, they were written under the feet of the biggest statue in the cartouche.”

“But look at the top,” he pointed high above us, “at the very top, very tall there are rows of baboons or monkeys. So the monkeys, over there, look at the figure. They are welcoming and greeting the sun every morning. In the middle, above the gate of the temple, the statue of god Ra, the sun god. But here he’s considered the leader of the god that’s inside the temple. On each side of him we can see Ramesses, he is offering to him.”

As he pulled out a rather large album with photos, each the size of whole pages, he encouraged our shorter members to move towards the front.

“When you enter to this temple you are going to see there is two halls of pillars, already inside this is first hall we have eight standing statues representing Ramesses II. They are shown here Osiride pose of the underworld. This is the form of Osiride,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Looks like the mummy, yeah?”

The children copied him for a bit by crossing their arms, getting a few laughs from the adults in the group.

“Behind of the statues from the right and left hand side you’re going to see many storage rooms – inside of the storage rooms, it was used to preserve the offering objects. But the whole scene inside the first hall here it’s fighting scenes, or military scenes, for the famous battle – it was called Kadesh. It was in Syria between Ramesses II and Hattusili II, king of Syrian people in that time.

“Inside the temple on the left hand side wall you will going to see three fighting scenes. This one, the first one it’s very famous. Look,” he tapped the picture. “Ramesses is fighting with the chariots and he’s pulling his bow and aiming around to the enemy in front.”

He held the photo down lower for the children to get a good look at this particular scene.

“Look at this very well we have something strange we have two bows, two arms, and four legs for one horse. It’s considered the first animation of movement in all of the world. More actions, maybe this is the Egyptian copy from Walt Disney.”

Only weak laughter from the adults greeted this attempt at humor, so Milad tried to move on quickly and flipped to the next photo.

“Another one – Ramesses, he is fighting with two enemies in the same time. He wants to show his power,” Milad held up his arm like a body builder to show off his biceps. “After the famous battle have ended Ramesses he returned back home an officer marching before him, his favorite lion is beside him usually and this looks like celebration.”

He flipped his album again to the next page.

“The last one for the hall is representing the panorama of the battle. The panorama there is more details, soldiers, chariots, horses, slaves. And the slaves they ask for mercy from the king, Ramesses II. And this document it is very important in our history because it’s considered the first peace treaty in all of the world, or peace agreement. Between Ramesses II and Hattusili II.”

Milad took a step back, “So listen.” He held up his hands with a defeated sigh, as though he had wrestled with this problem forever and never gotten a better answer.”There is no winner in this battle, but our ancient Egyptian document told us, ‘Ramesses you are the winner,’ of course. And of course the other document with the king of Syria, told us ‘Hattusili you are the winner’ so we have two big players there is no winner in this battle – this one you’re going to see just on the right hand side,” he said it with an incredulous smile. It makes me wonder what actually did happen. If they really did both decide they were both the winners, maybe it was because no such thing had ever been done before. In peace everyone wins.

“Inside the Great Temple there is another hall, it’s much smaller than the first one. But whole of the scene inside the second wall, just for offering. All the religion scenes. For example on the pillars you can see Ramesses he is offering to the gods.”

The next page is turned and he continued.

“As I told you in the beginning Ramesses he was married about 68 times, and he had 120 boys and 83 girls. If he still asked the fertility god to give him children, it would be a surprise to me. So could you show me which one the fertility god here?” he asked as he held out his photo. The children looked at it for a while, none of the adults wanted to interfere. Harry eventually pointed to the correct deity.

“Yes the one with the magic stick, is called Amun Min. He has one leg and one arm. There is the offering table and Ramesses here again, but as a human. We have Ramesses two times. First time represented as a god. Second time represented as a human, different face. This one you’re going to see on the right hand side once you get through the gate of the second hall.”

It was an interesting piece. He was mortal and immortal. He was human and god. At the same time, in the same space. Rejoicing in both. Perhaps it meant something different, something magical, another thing to look up in our ever growing collection of books.

“Ramesses here he was burning some incense and standing before the sacred boat. Which have been carried on the shoulders of the priests. Ancient Egyptians believed that the sacred boat would carry the gods to the underworld. They also believed the sacred boat would carry the king also to the underworld.”

We had seen these boats elsewhere in temples, museums, etc during our journey and it was an interesting tradition. The boats were solar boats and were a part of Ra’s mythology. He would ride the boat for the morning to bring the morning light and another to bring the night. Very much like Helios, but instead of a chariot it was a barge. During the night hours, Ra was in the underworld. As the earthly representative of the sun god, the pharaoh would use the same boats to reach the underworld.

“This is the most important part of our temple here. The holy of holies,” he said as he excitedly showed us a new photo, “or the sanctuary, four sitting statue carved into the temple. This is Ptah, God of Memphis. Amun Ra, God of Karnak Temple in Luxor. And this one, this king like himself so much, he put himself as a god. Beside Ramesses is Ra the sun god of this temple, you can see him above the entrance. But most important thing here, the light of the sun enter the sanctuary directly through the gate. This happened two times a year, 22nd of February and 22nd of October. On the faces of these three statues only. This one can have no light. Why? Because he is considered the god of darkness. But why all of this happened two times a year? Because the first day his birthday another his coronation day.”

I had known that, but decided that it would be more fun to be in the Adriatic than Egypt at the end of our trip.

“When the temple was in the older place it was happening in 21st of February, 21st of October. After moving the temple to the new location here it became late one day. Why? Because they moved the temple up.”

After Milad had finished his talk we finally entered the Great Temple. And it is Great with a capital letter “G.” Huge and elaborately decorated, this temple is perhaps my favorite stop so far. The pyramids in Giza were monumental, that’s true, but this temple felt more like a three thousand year old palace than anything else. I cannot even begin to imagine how someone from Ramesses’ time would react to such an impressive build. It might be like showing a video to a caveman.

Harry and I took many discrete pictures along the inside of the temple. When we went to leave, however, we found the three French children speaking in very good English to the man at the door. He was showing them the key that opened the doors to the temple. I was sure that was probably just decorative, but it was interesting and rather pretty.

I nudged Harry to go up with the other children. After a while, they were each given the key to hold, it was nearly as long as little Harry’s arm. He turned and took a cautious step towards me before holding the key in front of him, posing for a picture that I quickly took. As he held it, the shape became more obvious. It was an Ankh, a golden Ankh with a key bit at the bottom of the long shaft.

I rather thought I would like to meet the person who decided that would be what opened the temple’s door. The Ankh is often translated as “the key of life” or “the key of the Nile” and is a widely recognized symbol, even outside of Egypt. It almost felt like a prank that the key for all life would be used to open the temple for a king that lived an abnormally long life.

We found Milad outside the Great Temple and walked together towards the Small Temple.

“Now we’re going to talk about the temple for the queen, Nefertari the favorite wife of Ramesses II. And this one in the same time it’s dedicated to goddess Hathor. You know Hathor? The cow goddess. Hathor goddess of music, dancing, love, joy, and fertility. It’s a female goddess. There is two form of Hathor. First form like head of women’s, another form like cow.”

He showed us pictures in his album of the different versions of the goddess Hathor before he stepped closer to the Small Temple and pointing to the large statues in front of it.

“Six standing statues in the side of the temple. Four for Ramesses II and two only for the queen. I think Ramesses he maybe like himself again,” he said. There was a bit of weak laughter, this man was not a born comedian.

Milad pointed to the picture of the outside of the temple, “Ramesses, Nefertari, Ramesses, Ramesses, Nefertari, Ramesses…Wow he liked himself more than anyone.”

It was easier to see who he was pointing to on the photo he was holding than the statues. I could see a kind of symmetry to the statues as well. Two of the Ramesses guard the outside of the temple walls and the other two have the temple’s door between them. Nefertari is protected on both sides by her pharaoh.

“And there are twelve smaller statues between their legs or under their knees, these representing the children between Ramesses and Nefertari. So Nefertari she had twelve children, she’s a lucky woman.”

That is a lot of children to turn into statues. Just a few hundred years ago in England it would have been difficult for one woman to have so many of her children make it to adulthood. For a woman three thousand years ago to have twelve living children made into statues – seems like a big deal.

“Ramesses II he was so proud by himself he left some hieroglyphic letters outside the this temple he wanted to say, ‘I built this temple into the mountain, such work has never been attempted before,’” Milad added with a grin. But, I had to admit, Ramesses should have been proud of himself. The temples were incredible.

“Inside the temple there is only one hall of pillars. Look six square columns seem to support the roof. Whole scene inside this temple just for offering. The front part of each pillar, this is face of women with two small ears for the cow. This is the form of the goddess Hathor,” he pointed to one part of the new picture.

“And this is the beautiful lady queen Nefertari,” he showed us her image from inside the temple, “She putting the crown of Hathor above her head.” The crown was the two horns with a disc between them that is seen often throughout Egypt.

“Now this is the coronation picture from King Ramesses himself,” he held out the picture so that everyone could see better.

“Ramesses he’s just standing in the middle, Seth and Horus seem to be giving him the crown. So Seth god of evil, Horus god of good. Seth had a jackal head, Horus had a falcon head,” he said as he pointed to each of the gods in the photo.

“This is the coronation picture for Queen Nefertari,” he showed us the new picture before pointing to the goddesses. “She’s standing in the middle between goddess Hathor and the goddess Isis they seem to be giving her also the crown. But let me ask you. How can we know that this is Hathor and this is Isis? Because they are both twins. How can we recognizing them?”

Milad was obviously hopeful that someone in our group would be clever enough to know how one tells apart identical looking goddesses. He was not too disappointed when no one could answer though.

“It is in the cartouche,” he said as he tapped the cartouche before he revealed the last photo in his album. “The last one of the Small Temple we can see we can see Hathor in the form of the cow just standing in sacred boat between the lotus flowers. And Nefertari, she’s offering flowers to Hathor.”

Inside the temple we found the artistry very different. The columns very blocky, with the goddess portrayed on each one. It is still a beautiful work of art. If it is true that he built this out of love of her, it would not surprise me. There is just so much detail.

Harry and I took a few pictures inside the Small Temple before heading out to meet back up with Milad. The tour was over now, but he would be walking us back to the post that we had started from. The French children and their adults had already wandered nearer to the lake while we were inside. Harry very cautiously looked at me. I didn’t think I should push him to say the actual words of what he wanted just yet, at least when it came to human interaction. He was getting better, but these were children his age and that made it a slightly new experience.

I gave him a smile and a nudge in their direction and let him run off to play by the edge of the Nile. I absolutely took pictures of those moments.

We had spent hours at the temples in Abu Simbel. It was late afternoon and we decided to make a quick stop for some barbeque mutton before driving back to our campsite in Aswan. After packing up we would need to make our way to the dahabiya for our cruise. Technically, it started tonight with an evening meal on board. The next day we would still be sightseeing in Aswan, but it would be a part of the Nile cruise package.

Inspiration for the Egyptian baladi

https://youtu.be/r9w8ZQm3eVQ

https://youtu.be/B8Cm8IWIpgw

Chapter 17: Denial, Cruise

Chapter Text

15 February 1985

Somehow the wixen had become convinced that all goblins must live below ground and it is those living amongst them on the surface that are the odd ones out. Perhaps Gringotts is partially at fault for this mistake. They require all Masters of Bank Services to live within the cities below Gringotts Banks and many of the higher level banking officials that were not yet Masters would often live amongst them as a measure to gain greater prestige. Indeed the idea that goblins are available at all times within Gringotts Bank came partly from this protocol, and partly from the fact that daylight does not rule over hours of work for goblins. Goblins work when there is work.

Over centuries of war and combative interactions with humans, more and more of the Goblin Nation had gone to ground – literally. Though many still did live outside, it was becoming a rare occurrence. A well known family, that lived in Nottingham amongst the wixen, faced the attitudes of their neighbors stoically. Not all goblins wished to deal with such things though, and world over they had become more likely to live below the embassy like areas of the Nation’s banks. This had slowly created larger and larger city states for the Goblin Nation below the surface, where once Goblins had gathered in forests or carved homes into the faces of the mountains.

As it was, the current situation was exactly why Masters of Bank Services lived within the cities below Gringotts, because it was barely passing the midnight hour when the alert was sent.

Petunia Dursley had opened her letter.

Though many goblins worked at all hours of the night, at that precise moment Master Clinkscale was in a deep sleep. A dream of pounding footsteps as they charged through the black pines, stars of magic creating halos of light as it hit upon a thousand swords. Glinting silver light of his Falchtuck –

Twip

Twip
Twip – Twip

There was a bird in the dream. It was enormous and bore down on the guard. They were fighting valiantly, but –

Twip – Twip – Twip

“Chizpurfles,” I groaned as I tried to turn in my bed to silence the alert. With a great sigh I hefted myself over and smacked the alert silent.

It wasn’t necessary for me to check what the alert actually said, there was only one reason to alert me like this and that was those chizpurfles that had so abused their authority as adults that they made young suffer had finally done what they were supposed to do and opened the letter. I was aware that the wixen also suffered from the indignities of the chizpurfle, a lice that was attracted to magic, but in the wholly magical dwellings, businesses, and even farming of the Goblin Nation it was a pest that every goblin would gladly set on fire.

It often affected the rather adorable chui. It’s name comes from the sound this fluffy little creature makes when it is happy, though I had always believed it should be spelled zshoo in English. I had been considering getting a che to gift the young Potter. The che, should be spelled zi but no one asks me how to translate things into English, is an infant chui. It is fairly cat like, but with additional legs. And antenna. And fluffy feathery moth like wings. Maybe it isn’t as close to the cat as I had previously believed.

Often, chui was used as an affectionate term or a term of endearment and the che were given as pets to our young. They helped in the pollinating of our crops, but their fluffy and magical nature attracted chizpurfle that fed off of their magics. Potions could remove the infestation, but only fire would truly get rid of the little parasites.

It was approaching six weeks since Madam Figg had introduced herself and the situation with the child. It had been nearly three weeks since she returned the letter to Gringotts. We had used our magical human kin to safely insert the letter into their toiletries bag while they made a nightmare of a fuss at the airport. It had been nearly five days since the letter would become visible to Petunia Dursley. One wonders why it took her so long to notice. Did she not bother to bathe in that time?

In the time since the severity of the young Potter’s problem had been revealed, a great deal of work had been done. After the intensity of the medical exam, myself, Master Erlast and Master Rayner had been working towards further integrating him into the Goblin Nation as kin of my kin. Directly afterwards, when we had realized that there was a soul leach trapped within the scar, we went to the Council and called for an emergency medical mediation. It was a very good thing that Madam Figg and I had decided to declare the young Potter kin of my kin. If he hadn’t already been declared we would not have been able to do all that we did that night, or was it morning by that point?

Sighing, I scrubbed at my face and turned to lay on my back once more. I knew eventually it would all pay off. The plans that Madam Figg and I had come up with would lay low an impressive number of people while ensuring the protection of the young Potter. And, perhaps, others would be spared from a deplorable section of the human population. Who truly knows what changes these schemes would wrought when all was said and done?

Just in the time that the Dursleys had been gone, Madam Pillai had finished off all of the changes to the houses in Surrey and started on everything that the late Madam Potter had hidden from the world. It had taken a rather long letter from Madam Figg to convince me that she had not meant this hidden endeavor as an insult against myself and Gringotts. That she had used completely muggle means, some of them not quite legal, to create safe havens during the war that no one knew about and that needed to include the Nation.

According to Madam Pillai, the houses included a large variety in sizes and placements. Some were set in the country, some in the middle of great cities, others were along the coasts of countries far from here. All of them had significant magical protections that, we assume, Madam Potter had woven into them by herself. It was because of these protections that instead of legally being considered a muggle property, they could be taken in as a magical property for the young Potter’s inheritance. Master Wardsmith Rayner was practically salivating as her team ran through the protections.

Under Madam Figg’s direction, as the young Potter’s representative, we had created the ArchAngel portfolio as a mirror to the Silver Hynd portfolio that had been initiated by his parents. Where Silver Hynd looked into muggle products, companies, and properties the ArchAngel portfolio would look to encourage muggleborn and half blood magical businesses and products. Our discussions in the creation of ArchAngel had been what initially led to the talk of Avira Pillai, a technical half blood. It seems that while her parents, grandparents, and many others did not have magic, Madam Pillai’s cousins were all magically capable. An intriguing family, such a thing does not happen very often.

She had been trained by the finest masters in the world at Kamara Bada Karo with senior masters Kavita Chaudhry and Veeru Devgan being her advisors. Gringotts had her file completed years ago, but there was nothing within the Nation that required her services and the wixen that would call upon goblins for such services on the outside often expected goblins to do the work. We had learned to keep our human kin away from such projects, the wixen became aggressive otherwise. She had not made much progress since returning to British soil, despite her excellent credentials, most likely due to laws and unwritten social rules enacted and enforced by purebloods.

During Madam Figg’s trip through the alleys with the young Potter, Madam Pillai had been recommended to her when the pureblood run store had been less than helpful. After going through her file, we were both impressed enough to add And Relative Dimensions In Space to the new portfolio. Making it the second business to be added to the all magical investments for the Potter Estate. The first was still attempting to create the product that Madam Figg had commissioned in January, though things were looking promising.

The Spectacle was run by Otto Fick, a half blood who’s family escaped Germany during Grindelwald’s aggressions, and his Welsh born business partner Ayesha Ayola who was a muggleborn. They sold eyewear with enchantments attached to them. There were potions that could help wixen to have better vision, but as they got older their eyesight still deteriorated. Not to mention that the potions were terribly expensive. The business was acceptably profitable, but could be doing so much more.

Madam Figg had requested that they create defensive spectacles, if they worked well for her then the young Potter would have a pair as well. She said that it was essential to have something to create an Occlumency like barrier since Albus Dumbledore was a skilled Legilimens. Neither of us wanted him to read her traitorous intentions should he decide to meet her in person. Not to mention what all those loyal to the ways of Voldemort might do with such information. She also requested that they start looking into a fairly interesting concept of the muggle eye specialists called contact lenses. Though, I’m uncertain what wixen would be willing to touch their own eyes.

Hopefully, they would be successful in making Occlumency eyewear before we finally meet with Lord Black. It would be wonderful if we could ensure her mental protections before she attempted anything to do with the Most Noble and Ancient House. Master Shatterpic and Master Copper Claw had been creating drumming rumbles since the family tree for Harry Potter had been completed. All of the Masters for the Estates mentioned in his tree had been notified per the established protocol. Normally this would not create a problem, but no one had realized that Madam Potter was a half blood.

In our letters since the tree had been completed, neither myself nor Madam Figg could decide if Madam Potter was aware of her blood status. There were some advantages that she could have used, but I was personally of the opinion that she was better off without the rest of wixen society knowing. It was a violent time, her true bloodline might have made her an even greater target by the Dark Lord and his followers. Even worse, he might have kept her alive and captive instead of giving her an honorable death that protected her only child.

The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black was such a vast and old estate that it had two Masters of its clan assigned to ensure its success. The house was sprung from another almost a thousand years ago. Master Shatterpic was the Manager of Estates and Master Copper Claw was Master of the Black Accounts. With the near destruction of the House during the recent wars, they had little direction or interaction with their family. Lord Black had turned over Head of House duties to his son Orion when he started to become ill, though it is whispered he did not approve of all Orion’s decisions.

The House of Black is one of the few to continuously take up their lordship titles, unlike most wixen who let such things stay “unofficial” since the time when they fought to appear less like the muggles. The title is passed down automatically by the death of the previous holder, but that heir must officially take up the title by being tested through family magics and then filling out some standard clerical paperwork. If they do not do this, then they are not legally permitted to be called Lord and not given the privileges associated with it. Most simply do the clerical paperwork to become Head of House when the previous Head passes beyond the veil.

Groaning, I give in to the understanding that I will not be getting back to sleep now. Being far too awake with these thoughts and plots running through my mind, I pull myself out of my comfortable bed and check the alert. I was correct, the chizpurfles have finally opened the letter. We had accomplished so much in a short period of time, but there was more to do. If I am to be denied my sleep, I might as well pay attention to the missives I had been ignoring earlier.

Master Quickiron had agreed to Madam Figg’s idea to use the empty vaults in her schemes against those loyal to Voldemort, but only in principal as the young heir would be required to open the vault and inspect it first. At least the incessant rumbles of Master Shatterpic and Master Copper Claw were balanced by the elderly Master Quickiron.

He was a fresh wave upon smooth stones in comparison. Most of his clan had moved away from these accounts as they were not profitable and the family had not been seen within a Gringotts Bank for several generations. This was not exactly true, but the last one who could claim the vaults had not wanted to give blood to confirm their identity and lineage. Only Master Quickiron had stayed on, completely loyal to the family and hopeful that the vaults would see gold moving once more.

Adding Quickiron’s statements to the list of things to tell Madam Figg in my next letter, I looked over towards the large framed photo on my desk. It would be inappropriate to have such a thing in my office within Gringotts, but this was on my desk within my own home. It had arrived in a letter sent by the young Potter, kin of my kin, he had obviously written it in his own hand. I framed it and put it in this place of honor as a reminder. Moving in the photo was a small child with pink hair and sparkling green eyes, a wide smile gracing his face, he made new odd poses for the camera every few seconds. A happy child. A safe child. A child to fight for.

15 February 1985

Tik
Tik
Whir

Hummm

Tik
Tik
Whir

Hummm

The early morning light seemed almost lazy as it drifted through the window and glinted off the bright instruments. There was a small orchestra in the office made up of various gadgets and doodads. Most of them actually did things, those that didn’t… simply added to the music.

A small bowl of chocolate candies was on the corner of the desk. He normally preferred hard candies, but in deference to the holiday season he had switched them to chocolates. The candy of love. Few people seemed to enjoy hard candies like he did, perhaps they would be more accepting of this new variety.

It was far too early for chocolate, however, so he kept himself from nibbling on a piece as he sat in the chair behind his desk and thought.

He had been catching himself in deeper thoughts more often this month, as though he was being pulled into an undertow. Drowning in them.

This month hadn’t bothered him so much before. No, in fact, he loved the outpouring of love that happened during February in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. But not so much this year.

Oh, but he had worn his most colorful and dazzling robes with matching hats to help infuse the season with even more delight. It was only in the privacy of his own mind that the thoughts and feelings swarmed him.

This was part of why he had a mastery of the mental arts, as he could compartmentalize these thoughts and feelings to be dealt with later.

Now being later.

It had been five years ago this month that Albus Dumbledore had learned there would be an end to the bloody and vicious war Tom Riddle had thrust upon magical Britain. Five years ago that there was finally some hope for relief. He had never been a true believer in the arts of divination, simply because so many did not have the necessary gifts to be even proficient in the art. Having seen it happen right in front of him had, at the very least, made him a true believer in Sybil Trelawney’s abilities. Whether or not the rest of the magical population got any use from the subject he was unsure, but it didn’t hurt to continue the classes under someone who could not be denied as having the talent. And it certainly ensured that the woman was kept safely away from those who would cause her harm.

He glanced over at a very particular spinning, whirring contraption on a high shelf. Many of the instruments were simply reminders or watchers of things, places, magics, etc. This particular one used a single drop of blood he had pricked from young Harry Potter’s finger before the family had gone into hiding. He couldn’t stand looking at the twin instruments that used to rest beside it, so silent, and had reverently moved them to a keepsake box. It wasn’t possible for him to break his own heart more by destroying the instruments or using them for some other purpose. He simply couldn’t do it. Hence, the small box that held them. Perhaps a future gift for their son.

Prophecies can feel like doom to so many. To him, he felt only hope. It had not occurred to him that day, or even several days after, that there would be yet more blood shed before Tom was felled by a power he knew not. It did not occur to him in his joy of an end, that the end might come at too great a cost.

Others believed they were in a stalemate, but that would require more recruits to join both sides. When the reality was that many of the neutral and light members of wizarding Britain would rather not believe that they could be next. Even as more and more citizens disappeared, they denied it was a real issue. They believed that the ministry would make it better. They refused the evidence of the civil war that was tearing the country asunder. They would not fight against the rising tide of darkness.

Gellert, in all his devastation, had an aim. He had a reckless belief and a plan. Tom Riddle was a madness that insidiously infected the population and spread like a plague. Attracting the worst and darkest parts of society before unleashing them like a maelstrom upon the defenseless and the light.

All Tom wanted was Death. And yet, from Death he ran.

It was a cold sort of poetry, Albus thought as he looked at his wand.

Over the years and the battles it had become clear that Tom hadn’t simply done a few dark rituals too many, he had found some way to ensure he would not die. There was nothing solid to be found on the matter and that still vexed Albus terribly.

There were scant few who would or could be relieved of first hand memories regarding Tom Riddle, even if it was just memories from his school years. Albus had started trying to find people willing to help, or those he felt capable of tricking into such help, when rumors had started to reach Hogwarts of what the young man was up to in his travels after graduation. He still hoped that some of it was exaggeration. But then Tom had returned after over a decade of completely enveloping himself in dark magics, of building his branded army, and claimed he had pushed the boundaries of magic. His face, his magic, his very soul seemed tainted by his arrogance.

By the time Tom had returned in his farce for a teaching position, Albus had collected barely any memories that could be directly connected to Tom’s misdoings. Where now stood a wall of glowing memory, hidden from prying eyes, at that time there was only bottles. A drink of welcome had been offered from those bottles during a conversation where Tom went so far as to insist on being called by the epithet he had created for himself, Voldemort. It was a game of chess that they had already been playing in the deep shadows, coming forward.

The darkest of shadows already held wizards called Death Eaters, part of his marked army. Four of them had loyally traveled with Tom, waiting in the Hog’s Head. Before exposing his knowledge of these four, Albus had thought perhaps Tom had his friends waiting in his brother’s pub on purpose. To strike at his family, or just to show that Voldemort could threaten and do as he wished. Rather humorously Tom didn’t seem to know who the bartender was though, the idea it was a threat was dropped.

That was the start of their war come forward. It was a painful thing to see, he had so woefully failed his student.

One of the bad habits of being a teacher and school master for so long was that time stood still for the students that passed through the halls. They never grew beyond, never became adults. They stayed forever children.

Albus had never had such a luxury. In all the time he had worked as teacher and headmaster, he had forced himself to see the trajectory of the childrens’ lives. To try, in earnest, to create a better world through teaching and direction specific to each of those precious lives.

It is an unfortunate truth, however, that Albus lived during a time of wars that were each of them crueler and more bloody than the last. It often meant making the heartbreaking decision to encourage his students in greater amounts of defense to keep them safer. Minerva was so disappointed in that, she amounted it to training children to be soldiers. To Minerva they would always be forever children.

She wasn’t the only one with a soft spot for the Potters, though. But Albus wasn’t there when James Potter decided not to push himself in Quidditch, deciding not to become a professional at the game he loved so much. He wasn’t there when she had worked with James on his prospects since his fourth year, only to listen as he said there were more important things than the World Cup. Albus wasn’t there when Lily Evans asked for combat training from Minerva to combine her natural talents in Charms with Transfiguration elements she still struggled with in her sixth year, when she should have been looking forward to the research and experiments she was so fond of scribbling in her books.

Albus wasn’t there. Albus didn’t notice.

The problem with building up the idea, the mystique, of being all knowing is that people expect you to be all knowing. And Albus didn’t know.

He felt it now. The crushing weight of failure. He cradled his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the headmaster’s desk.

He had been fighting for so long now.
His whole life was a war.
It would never end.

Shining blue eyes looked back up to the bright silver that whirred away on a high shelf.

He had been teaching soldiers.
He had been a soldier.
He did not wish to make another.

Their son, the hope of the wizarding world, lived on. Outside of the world of magic. Outside the influence of dark magics and politics. Outside the authority of Albus Dumbledore.

Harry Potter would be his own person.

His loving mother had studied arcane rituals to give him a shield that would protect him until adulthood. She had literally sacrificed herself to give Harry an opportunity to safely and innocently grow and it should not be twisted or taken from him.

It was wonderful that she had used a blood bound ritual, so smart Lily Potter. With blood relations in Petunia Dursley née Evans and her young son, Harry would have further protections from any of Tom’s friends who wished to do him harm as he grew. It was unfortunate, though, that Petunia would be less than receptive after so long spent arguing with her sister about magic. Lily had obviously forgiven her of what strife was between them for her to have prepared such remarkable magics. Petunia did not seem so forgiving. But Albus had ensured that she and her son would also benefit from the safety of her sister’s sacrifice. His letter had thoroughly explained all of this and ensured she would want to take him in to her home, sealing the charm.

In time, Albus knew, those small pitfalls of families would smooth themselves out.

Shortly after Harry was ensconced in the home of his aunt, Albus had used Lily’s process for buying muggle safe houses in order to secure Arabella Figg near to the Dursley house. She would be able to report back on any magical issues while keeping a low profile. He had hoped it would help ease her own grief now that the war was at an unofficial détente. There was time to heal and regroup, time to grieve.

Of course, Arabella was appalled at the muggle idea of discipline. She had sent him pictures of young Harry with bruising without understanding that it was standard practice for most muggles to enforce good behavior with physical punishment. Such a thing was unheard of in the magical world for at least a century due to increased awareness in what creates the obscurial.

Then she also thought sending a child to bed without his dinner was an egregious thought. Albus and Arabella had argued over that several times. In his hopes to ease both their worries, Albus had set foot in Little Whinging for the first time since delivering Harry Potter to his aunt.

He had avoided it. Not just because he did not want to force the boy to be other than he would be. He also did not wish to draw even more attention to a muggle area regardless of Harry’s protections. When he arrived he had cast several spells on himself to be better able to see the wards around the house. They were, of course, in perfect working order. No where could be safer for Harry Potter.

But when the Dursley family had won a holiday for a prize, Arabella had renewed her insistence that they were unsuitable guardians. It was ridiculous. Even though the boy might need to withstand the pressure of a disgruntled aunt and a seemingly spoiled cousin, it was significantly less than what the so-called upstanding members of wizarding Britain would do to Harry. Not to mention what would have happened if Sirius Black had managed to abscond with the boy before Albus had secured him. Who knows how long the boy would have lived then? Or if the blood bound protections would still have worked? Albus had seen hundreds of children who were muggleborn or half blood that had been disciplined in the way of muggles. Harry would be fine.

It was Arabella he had started to worry over.

That happened with some people as they worked through their grief. She had become overly attached and thought every little thing was something to worry over. The small charm Albus had attached to his letter would help her to get over that bump in her road to recovery. Very few people could understand the wretchedness of grieving for love. It was the most powerful of emotions, of intents. And what was magic if not willful intent?

Poor Arabella. Her lot in life had been a slow and lonely path. She had found love just before the war had begun in earnest. Her wife was a brilliant potions mistress and Arabella was able to assist her in lesser ways. Arabella’s contacts had also helped to bring in some information for the cause. It wasn’t much, but it did provide context to many other things. It might have helped save an asset or two who would have stepped into a trap. But the dear couldn’t fight, and she would never be able to hold any kind of political office to assist the Order. She did her best, despite her limitations.

Albus believed that the prize would help both Arabella with her grief and Harry with any lingering issues there were with the Dursleys. Arabella was going to be coddling the boy for a month in her home. She would get all this nonsense out of her system. The Dursley family would return home and could begin anew with young Harry.

There was no way that Albus could confide in Arabella about the prophecy. Perhaps it would give her some comfort, but it might also give her the same headaches he experienced. After all he had been told by magic itself, through a mouthpiece, that there was one who could vanquish Tom and that it could not possibly be Albus.

Born as the seventh month dies…

And he had to learn how to balance that. Did the prophecy include Albus going out to get yet more information about Tom and his dark rituals? Did the prophecy know that he had ensured Harry and his guardians would be safer? It was a knife’s edge to live on. At least it was clear that Harry would be whole and alive for as long as Tom existed, there was very little that could probably damage the boy at all. The bruising from his punishment had been a surprise, but he had no lasting damage.

Growing up in the muggle world would make sure he was humble. He would need to be humble to survive the upcoming war. He would need to be strong and independent, to do what needed to be done. He needed to trust in Albus absolutely so that he could be guided to his destiny. He was the only one that could end this war.

Tik
Tik
Whir

Hummm

Tik
Tik
Whir

Hummm

15 February 1985

It was late in the evening, the Forest was heavy with snow and darkness. There was nothing here that would best the potions master, but he did not wish to be startled during his collecting. He set about some proximity alerts in strategic places before he settled into his work.

The cold had dropped in the extreme tonight, making it perfect to collect snow from the snowdrops. If kept cold by special vials, the snow would make a useful additive in a healing potion that induced a restive sleep. If it melted, the snow could cause a cursed sleep in a different potion. At least that was what his arithmancy work pointed towards. The potions were still in their early experimental stages.

The dark figure carefully knelt in the soft piles of snow before the flowers, a glow coming from them under the blanket of white. He gently removed each scoop of now magical snow with a pure silver tool and methodically settled it into the vial that would keep it cool. The task took concentration. Too much force could bend the flowers and make the snow useless. Too little force and the scoop would not capture any snow at all.

The potions master preferred these tasks. Something that he could pour his entire concentration into. No one near by to blunder into something that could kill them. No one who would force his concentration to split. Just him and the task.

There was nothing else.
There was no reason to think on anything or anyone else.
Especially not this month, of all months.

It took hours to carefully remove and collect his newest specimen. It was a quiet meditation, uninterrupted.

The classroom was never a kind place for Severus Snape.

There were too many tasks and too much stupidity. It seemed each new year had at least five new troublemakers and one new thorn in his side. Like a bloody metamorphmagus.

The damnedable children thought they were indestructible. The wrong ingredient, an off timing, too high a flame, and they could be maimed or die. They could take their classmates with them. Not that the little dunderheads ever seemed to consider such a thing.

The walk back to the castle was less pleasant.

Amidst grumbles over suicidal morons, Severus was reminded he was not so spry anymore. His knees and hands suffered during his collections more now than they had before. He was a young man and, though his pains could be attributed to having gone through war and torture, he was a believer in the theory of magical aging.

The theory stated that those who went through harsher emotional upheavals would age prematurely. Severus knew he had seen that in muggles, but with magic the destruction of one’s own body would be more devastating. One look at the Headmaster would support such a theory. He was barely at what magical people would call middle age, yet he looked so much older.

The torments Severus had gone through physically, the crucios, dark spells, the beatings, had nothing on the emotional pain that he had gone through. Chained to one master, turned psychotic. Chained to another master, who was the same manipulator Severus had known all his life. What choice did he have? All others that had tried to leave died–

Regulus…

The precious vials safely put away, Severus settled himself next to the fire in his quarters with a warm glass of amber liquid. The deep notes of a somber, angry song reverberating around the room from the record player.

What avenue of escape was there for a lowly half blood, when the purest of purebloods were slaughtered by their leader?

There wasn’t even a body that he could bury. Nothing but another cold, black mark on his already marred soul. More reason for his own magic to destroy his body.

What he had thought was the final tear on that damaged, scarred inner self had happened five years ago this month. He had not thought of anyone else when he had overheard the prophecy. Why would he? He had thought prophecy a stupid bunk. The Dark Lord had demanded he follow the Headmaster whenever possible, however, and that included listening in on this job interview with Trelawney. Even if he had thought that the Dark Lord would believe in such tosh, he would never have imagined that the person in the prophecy would be the son of his only childhood friend.

Who could predict that he would only destroy more and more of his soul every moment after that?

Trapped. Imprisoned with his tormentor. With his memories of this castle and all that had happened here. Led around and verbally cut by an old manipulative twazzock. Waiting for a child that would be the end of his misery. Or the beginning of worse.

Severus took another sip from his glass.

15 February 1985

Curled up in the corner, shivering even with the mass of fur that should protect him, Sirius Black did not know what month it was. He was not even sure how many months had passed since he was locked in this frozen Hell to pay for his sins.

Were he in the right mind to observe it, he would have noticed that the ever present frosting along the walls and floors was more ice than frost. He might have been able to guess the time of year from this alone. But Sirius Black had no true coherent thoughts.

Just pain.
Just sorrow.
Just cold.

He hid himself as his animagus grim as often as he could. It felt better. A bittersweet escape from the worst of the torture.

It was all his fault.

His only true understanding was that thought.

It was all his fault.

He was the one that denied Remus the position of Secret Keeper.

He was the one that couldn’t string together all the problems they were having, too many leaks.

He should have known it was the Rat.

It was all his fault.

He made them do it.

He was a grim, bringer of Death.

The broken, near frozen grim cried in his sleep as he curled up even tighter against the never ending cold.

16 February 1985

Spinning in place, faster than was literally humanly possible, Shatterpic let go the war sphere. The ring and long chain staying firmly in her grasp as she crouched to see her score. She and the account manager had started this exercise when their account holder had first appointed his son, Orion, as Head of House. As if that pile of rubble could properly direct his way out of a lit cave.

“Just past the emerald line,” smirked Copper Claw, “I’m sure I will have great troubles in defeating such an awe inspiring throw. Our ancestors would be proud.”

“Shut your maw and throw, you old limestone lick. I’ll have you know I am still aggravated over the state of our account’s affairs.”

“tSk, tSk, tSk. You shouldn’t let it cloud you during the throws, that was the whole point of starting up with this sport. To not think about all the stupidity the human outsiders are pouring down on us like so much debris.”

Copper Claw stepped into the chalked circle to throw her war sphere. While their technique was similar to their partner, it was thrown with greater strength. The sphere flew from the chain it was loosed, going far beyond the other.

“Ah, a copper line for Copper Claw. How fitting,” she smirked at her disgruntled colleague. “Perhaps you can make up for it in your next two throws, Shatterpic. You only need to get two gold line throws to potentially meet my skill point.”

“How can you be in such a distastefully arrogant mood? Especially when you know who they will involve in the affairs of the Blacks? You know they don’t tolerate outsiders–”

“– interfering with Black family business. I’m well aware. But I also know that there is finally a good chain of ownership. So what if they involve–”

“Hust-hust, don’t say it.”

“Holcomb.”

“Must you be so foul? Involving other humans is bad enough, to involve that one? Treachery! How will we explain it to Lord Black?”

Copper Claw handed her crumbling friend a new war sphere and then shoved her into the throwing circle.

“If he wanted to have a say in things then he would answer our missives. We have to keep the knowledge of the child quiet so that the others get what they deserve, but if we don’t get the ins we need through him we have no choice but to involve–”

“Don’t you dare.”

A rough sigh escaped her, “– that person. No one else has the power to do it without involving the very people we are trying to avoid. And don’t you forget that the only reason this is even an avenue for us is because the family has ensured they carry on their title by facing the family magics and filling paperwork out in triplicate.”

Harrumphing as she got more properly into the circle, Shatterpic held the ring firmly in her hands before she began to spin. Her form was good, but her strength was still deterred by the events that were heavy stones settling on her mind. It was too much even for sport to overcome.

“Ah, well. At least it was better than last time.”

The snarky comment was the last straw for the other goblin and she let loose a torrent upon Copper Claw in retaliation.

“My clan has served the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black since before the Norman barons carved up their kingdom, before Mathrafal was destroyed, since before they fought alongside the French against the English. I have served this post as it’s Manager of Estates since Arcturus became the titled Head of House,” Shatterpic snarled. “I would rather slit the throats of our enemies and watch as their blood falls across the stones in a glistening stream, knowing it would mean yet another war with the outsider humans. I have no wish to involve,” she grimaced, “the sorcerer.”

“And I,” Copper Claw softly replied, “have been in my post as Master of Accounts since the Head was Headmaster Phineas Nigellus. Before he even claimed his title. It has been a great honor for our clans to serve the ever forward moving House of Black, but now there are too few of them. They have been ravaged by wars and removed from the tree for politics, there may come a time when the Blacks are no longer the Blacks.”

Looking furious, Shatterpic went to interject but was halted as her colleague continued in their low soft tone.

“We must decide if we will still be the keepers of the accounts if that is to happen. The accounts and estates are so large and numerous that it takes two Masters to uphold the honorable duties. But if there were to be no Blacks left? The Lord Arcturus and Head of House Orion have both made it clear as crystal that they do not wish for the sisters to inherit, especially the youngest girl. Without Lord Arcturus’ intervention the House is collapsing, if we are to change that then we need to involve the sorcerer.”

Slowly, as though she were weighed down with all the thoughts and feelings she had tried to let go of earlier, Copper Claw moved to take her place in the throwing circle. Attaching a new sphere to her ring and chain, she took deep breaths hoping to find her center. It was a good throw, but not her best.

“I am sorry for my outburst, Copper Claw. It was a heavy frame to put around us and it was clear that this is not the time to think on such things.”

“I know it troubles you, it troubles me too. We must acknowledge the potential issues that may yet come, but with this new information we have greater hope than we have had for many years.”

“Indeed,” Shatterpic replied with a toothy smile. “The next time that quartzy chrysaor comes through looking for more Black gold, it will be good to tell him no in new and exciting ways.”

“If only we could,” came the happy reply, “we need the representative’s permission to even mention it. She and the Master of the boy’s account have plans within plans. Can’t wait to see what she will do with the quartzy chrysaor, it will be spectacular.”

“Oh, yes. She will do terrible things to him, more glory to her. But I do wonder how the wixen will handle his great grandfather being so unusual. Did you hear the latest from the Archives? They are thinking of making it a mandatory requirement for all new account holders to be tested.”

“That will cost a significant amount of gold. If they don’t wish to go through with it they might go over to the dwarves and use their services.”

“Pfft ‘services’ pfft. As though they offer anything other than a hole in the ground. But if we can consolidate some of the accounts, or wake some like the child has done for Quickiron, then the gold moves more.”

“Poor Quickiron.”

“Poor Quickiron,” Shatterpic agreed. “Hopefully, he does not diminish our own accounts attempting to sooth Quickiron or reward his loyalty after so many disappointing years. It would only lower our own prestige.”

“It would seem the representative is already taking great initiative with magical side investments for the child’s portfolios. They would not lose any prestige taking from those accounts to fill the barren vaults of an old name. The denial of which has long been an empty stain for Quickiron’s clan.”

“True,” she said as she picked up a new war sphere, “but let us do as you have recommended. Let us leave it behind and focus on our sport.”

Both of them grinning, Shatterpic stepped back into the throwing circle.

17 February 1985

A good spy remains invisible.

It was something that I had lived by since the beginning of the seventies. A decade had passed with me invisible. I had reveled in my invisibility. In all that could be accomplished with an invisible network. We had saved more than a dozen missions. Saved people a hundred times over on both sides of the divide. All because we were invisible.

It was like a super power.

Except– Except that I had let my whole self get swallowed in the invisibility. Denied myself outside of that cloak and dagger. Especially after the death of my wife. Even here, as I tried to be in more of the pictures, I still felt trepidations in being so visible.

That’s the funny thing about Denial, it follows you wherever you go.

I still needed that invisibility, but I needed to live too. I needed to have something for me. Being responsible for children can take over a person as well. My life will revolve around those responsibilities and I need to not get lost in that either.

We were traveling by rigid airship again tomorrow, this time on our way out to the magical enclaves of Italy. Very, very early tomorrow morning, Harry and I would leave our dahabiya Nile cruise and take a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank of Luxor before we moved on. I was a bit nervous to be in a rickety basket held up by hot air, but I thought on how my siblings had so easily learned to fly on brooms and pulled myself together for this adventure.

Before we settled in for the night, I went down to check my post in the suitcase. There was yet another letter from Clinkscale. We had been rolling with the changes for our plans, they were becoming more and more complex. The best ways to protect innocence while ensuring that neither side would be able to cause great harm, it would mean I had to step out of my comfortable invisibility. I had to be more courageous than I believed myself to be, but how could I not? How could I not go further when I know what the consequences would be for everyone?

Harry still had living family. His great great uncle was still alive.

There were so many unknowns, that my head was spinning. How could I trust my knowledge or plans to an unknown? He could help, by god could he help. But he could also hurt. What would happen if he decided to claim this lost line? Would I fight for the responsibility if he seemed competent and – well… not evil?

Up until a few weeks ago Harry even had a cousin on his line that had been living, close by marriage if not by blood. I was certain that I would not let him near her, but because she had passed away did that make his great great uncle safer?

I was having trouble breathing.

I was having a panic attack. Haven’t had one of those in ages.

The goblins aren’t even sure how it happened. They have theories, but until we speak to his great great uncle we will only have theories.

Corvinus had only shown up on Harry’s family tree because I had wanted to make sure that all of Lily’s muggle family were included. But magic doesn’t care so much if someone makes a legal change to a name when it is asked to work by blood and magic. When “Corvinus White child of Sirius Black and Hesper Gamp Black” appeared on the tree, there was an uproar at Gringotts. The roar was echoed by the Nation. Havoc ensued.

The youngest son, going by the dates on Harry’s tree, had never made it onto any official record or tapestry. That meant that Corvinus had never had a breath of magic. He was so completely muggle, that he just never registered on anything.

They found him in muggle paperwork going by Corvinus White, a teacher at an all boys school. There were even pictures they were able to dig up. From there, the goblins were able to trace his schooling from the young age of 7 in the muggle world all the way to his death in 1957.

He had one child, Hazel White, with his muggle wife Viola Taylor. Hazel later married Alfred Evans and they had two daughters, Petunia and Lily. I remember that Lily had been inconsolable when Alfred and Hazel had been in a horrible car crash and died in 1979.

The goblins think it is safe to assume that at least Petunia was never aware of her actual lineage. It was more difficult to discern what Lily Evans Potter knew of her magical heritage. Did she know and just not trust anyone enough to speak of it? If she did trust someone, have they simply died with that secret as well?

And it was a secret that just kept getting bigger.

Because it wasn’t only on the distaff side that she had a weighty magical heritage.

It was amazing to think that they didn’t know who the next heir would be for such a famous line, but the family had so distanced itself from wixen society that Balin’s great great grandson came as a bit of a surprise to the goblins. There were no significant cadet branches of Gaunt left. Generations of inbreeding and paranoia had lost the family their elevated status, their money, and eventually their legacy. The archives only automatically tracked those that had enough magic, this was a case of squibs getting lost in that shuffle.

Harry’s great great grandparents were Balin Gaunt and Alethea Runcorn, both squibs who were cast out of their families. From what little the goblins were able to uncover Balin Gaunt was the son of Bruno Gaunt and Oda Orpington Gaunt. Making Balin the brother of Mabon Gaunt.

It is awkwardly true that many of the pureblood families are interrelated. It is intensely awkward to know that Harry Potter is the great great grandson of Tom Riddle’s great great uncle. This is because Mabon Gaunt married Eura Selwyn and had Marvolo Gaunt, Tom Riddle’s grandfather.

When Harry’s great great grandparents left the magical world behind, Balin and Alethea changed their surname to the common muggle name Evans. This was perhaps to further avoid detection by at least the Gaunt family who were well known to not be tolerant. They had one child, Harry’s great grandfather, Grover Evans, who they raised completely on the muggle side of the divide. Not much was found on either of them, just death dates. Balin died in 1938 and his wife Alethea died in 1956.

By all proper accounts Grover Evans was an upstanding government man. He worked in the agricultural sector and would spin the most boring tales of farming if anyone tried to press him. In reality, the goblins found that he had worked for their majesty’s service on highly classified projects that even they couldn’t get any solid information on decades later. Grover had died in a classified mission that was covered up as a fire in 1978.

His dear wife was a muggle nurse named Hyacinth Moore Evans. She passed several years before Grover in 1973 from pneumonia complications. Hyacinth was known for her brilliant green eyes and fiery red hair, traits that she passed on to their son Alfred. In turn, Alfred would pass along her coloring to his daughter Lily. Grover and Hyacinth were, by all written accounts available, completely muggle in every way.

It had been something like ten days since Master Clinkscale had written that letter detailing out a heritage that had been completely unknown to – well, to anyone. At the time I took it very well, even sent a few ideas on how to use such information to the benefit of our schemes. The magnitude of everything seemed to be hitting me all at once, after having been set aside in favor of our adventure through Egypt.

It was an overwhelming amount of complicated information.

It all boiled down to Harry being able to become account holder for Potter, Black, Slytherin, and Gaunt vaults. He could also take up their votes in the Wizengamot by proclaiming himself Head of House officially, but taking up so many names was considered crass. All but the Gaunt line were individually titled, though there was very little use in having such a thing.

Though it did seem there was one odd and obscure use for it, what the Black Manager of Estates and the Master of Accounts wanted to do, maybe for that it would be worth it to be titled. I had been thinking about this type of involvement all the way back in December, but hadn’t been able to find a way to do it subtly enough to avoid Albus. Perhaps the goblins could do such a thing, but I was still worried about making too much noise and attracting too much attention.

As far as the goblins have been able to tell, there was never any legal or ritual rending of Lily’s ancestors from their pureblood families. Such a task is only done by the most extreme of families with squibs, but we were talking about the Blacks and the Gaunts so checking was an absolute must. Squibs were considered secondary in laws for inheritance, passing them by if there was a magical relative available but not completely removing them. It would not have meant much in the old days that the squibs were still a part of the family tree, as there were so many active users along the main branches. This may have influenced their decision about not rending them from the family. However, there were very few left in the main family lines now and even fewer than normal for cadet branches.

There was no one at all who had officially claimed the merged Slytherin or Gaunt accounts and inheritances for almost a hundred years. Perhaps due to the prejudice against goblins or anger against the softness the Gaunts’ perceived in the magical government. They had stopped sending their children to Hogwarts long ago too. The last of the line, Tom Marvolo Riddle, had gone to Hogwarts. But he had not attempted to claim either inheritances through the goblins or through the clerks in the Ministry. There was one recorded visit when it was noted he had asked about such things, but never went through with the giving of blood and magic to confirm heirship.

He would have been disappointed if he had tried to go through with the test. Tom Riddle’s mother was the younger Gaunt. It was actually his uncle that was the true heir, not him. His Uncle Morfin was also not murdered with the rest of Voldemort’s family, instead he was sentenced to Azkaban after having admitted to killing the muggle Riddle family. It wasn’t until Morfin died in Azkaban that his nephew could claim such titles.

Even if he had, Lord Voldemort had been declared dead by magic and the government on 31 October 1981. The standard protocol protections on all Gringotts vaults is to wait for three full days after the presumed death. This three day waiting period is to make sure the alleged deceased won't return to life through any means or can prove themselves to be a part of one or more undead groups. If this period expires any heir by magic, blood, or will could take claim of the vaults. Meaning that all Harry has to do is go to Gringotts and proclaim the titles and heirship as his own.

Not that even taking those accounts would mean very much.

The goblins have already confirmed that all vaults under Slytherin and Gaunt have no money in them. There are also no known properties that are linked to the vaults. It is likely that no one has tried to claim them for that reason. We believed that the claim for the seat on the Wizengamot was not attempted by any distant relation for the worrying reason that people believe the Dark Lord Voldemort is the rightful holder and he would do awful things to anyone who tried.

None of the titles from that side of his mother’s heritage would do any good and it wasn’t as though Harry really needed empty vaults. Though, we were going to use some as part of the plans against his enemies. We were just going to rent another vault originally, but this vault was deep within the Bank and would help greatly. The goblins were still digging, but the real problems – the panic inducing worries– those came from the other side of things. The Black side of things, the side with still living and dangerous members.

The Black family had also been trimmed from war and mismanagement. Lucius Malfoy had been trying to access the main vaults of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black for a very long time under the assumption that his son would be the rightful inheritor. Lord Arcturus had passed on the duties for Head of House to his son Orion some time ago, but Orion had died prematurely. Orion’s eldest son should have taken on the duties, but wished to have nothing to do with the House of Black. Leaving Regulus to fill the role of heir unofficially, but he had died just before his father. The last heir of Arcturus was presumed to be Sirius Black and he was locked away in Azkaban never to return.

Malfoy believed that his wife, Narcissa Black Malfoy, should be the next in line though she was not from the main branch. Narcissa was related to Walburga Black, and while her sisters were older, she was the only one not disinherited and not in Azkaban.

Before now, however, no one had known about the magical wand waving Harry Potter being descended from Arcturus’ youngest brother Corvinus. In addition it clearly listed Harry as Sirius Black’s heir in his will, which was formally lodged with Gringotts, as was appropriate for such a claim. Both of these things together gave Harry the greater claim to the heirship of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. We were hopeful that this could be used to press for Sirius to have a real trial, among other things, without having to deal directly with the Wizengamot as it was filled with rivals.

The biggest issue with utilizing anything to do with the House of Black, though, was that Arcturus was alive and Lucius thought he was due the fortune. Probably, because he was running through massive amounts of gold bribing everyone or taken on their debts so they would feel beholden to him.

We had no way to know how Arcturus would react to having a great great nephew who could inherit from him. Not to mention Slytherin and Potter. There was simply no way to know. He never left his home. He rarely answered mail or floo. If we couldn’t get a direct response from him, we would need to go the very difficult route around him. A route which would attract even more outside attention.

I couldn’t get this wrong, the consequences were too severe and it would all be my fault.

I would have to meet with Arcturus Black at his own home.

I was scared to death.

18 February 1985

The back of Ruvyn’s head hit the wall with a dull thump. It was all just sooooooo boring. Surely there shouldn’t be school on a day like today? They didn’t have to go through the agony of school tomorrow because of the big party, but Ruvyn was of the opinion that there shouldn’t be any school at all this week. The uppers had started arriving in larger numbers over the past couple of cycles, but today they were coming in swarms to Erdra. There was so much to see, why couldn’t his parents appreciate that?

And who schedules a test the day before Celebration Night?

Ruvyn Rophyra had finally finished swallowing the whole knowledge of Lesson One Weaving and now had to prove he could make at least three different baskets from baleen. There had to be patterns on one but they hadn’t even given him pigments, uurrrggghhhhhhh, so unfair. It seemed pointless to test the knowledge when he had swallowed it! What was the point of lusters if they were going to force him through a test anyway?

His family owned the largest luster and runic vessel shop in the entire city, had for a few generations now, so Ruvyn knew what was what about lusters. As long as the person they copied the skills and memories from actually knew what they were doing, and used the right runic bead the way they were supposed to, then the only way that it could get messed up was if the person eating the knowledge didn’t use the right bead for transferring it. He supposed that there could be an issue in the vessel that held the memory before it got to the person who wanted to eat the luster, but that would be super obvious.

Thump

Why did he have to take this test?

Urrgh

They didn’t even let him pick the better baleen or use pigments or anything. He swished his tail a bit in frustration. If they really wanted to test his skills, he should have been given better materials.

“Have you completed your task, young Ruvyn Rophyra?” asked Teacher Aneirin Brynan.

“Nearly, good teacher. These baleen are a bit shorter than I would like for this project.”

“You are doing well, young one. This is your first test of knowledge, the first one can seem… finicky. But you will find one must teach the body as well as the mind, eating your knowledge does not do both. It is a trap to think otherwise.”

“Yes, good teacher.”

She nodded her head wisely and glided gracefully out of the room, leaving Ruvyn alone once more. As soon as she was gone he rolled his eyes and groaned again. He had to get this test done so that he could go see all the uppers as they got ready for the party tomorrow. Not to mention all the food stalls that had been set up through the city.

It took a while, but finally he could say that he was done. Luckily, the scoring was done without him there and he could see what it was later. He had to head home first, but he was so gonna go and see what everyone was up to and if there were any interesting upper worlders out there already. He knew that Tassarion Elawraek had set up her stall for Spresso and was hoping to get a free mim. Ruvyn had tried the lat sized Spresso before, but his parents said he was never allowed to do that again. But, well, two mims equal one lat and they never said he couldn’t have more than one mim, did they?

And Nakiasha Perran said they were going to have a good selection of nugen. They were going to let Ruvyn see all the different colors and patterns that were available on the slugs. Everyone had one and surely his parents would let him have one as a reward for all the hard work he had done helping get ready for the Celebration Night.

It was going to be the first Celebration Night he would be allowed to attend without constant supervision. He was all of five revs already. And he was responsible enough to finish his lesson one courses even though he hated it. That was definitely deserving of a pet.

When Ruvyn finally finished his test he got home fast enough that it didn’t seem like anyone else was there. Speeding off to his room he looked for his clasp and checked his ink. He was just learning to make shapes along his tail, but the older kids could do much more. The older girls he saw by the school had already figured out how to texture their tails and make the tips bright colors. He thought his circles were pretty good even if they were all basic black in color against his teal tail. For a moment he thought about trying to add a basic shape to his chest or arm to show off for Celebration Night, but most times only adults could make their ink stay in shapes on their upper bodies. Besides, one good flush of anger, or embarrassment, or excitement in today’s case, and all that work would fade away.

Oh no, he had taken too long. That was definitely his mother coming home. She would want to talk to him about his first test and then rattle on about safety and whatever because of the crowds and tourists. Was it possible to try and sneak out?

“Ruvyn? Are you home yet?”

No, it was not possible to sneak out.

He grabbed his clasp, making sure it had his money disc in it, and adjusted the beads he put on his ears before heading out to greet her.

“Hi maahm, I was just heading out.”

“Of course you were,” she bubbled. “But first you will tell me how your first test went, I know you were so nervous.”

“I was not, I was bored. It’s stupid to test on stuff that I already know!”

“Now Ruvyn Rophyra you listen to your maahm, someday the shop will be yours and you will need to understand how important it is to do these tests. The lusters are just copies of knowledge and skill, you need to shape them into your own mind and body until they are aligned. The tests are to help with that building. Do you understand?”

He was trying really hard not to roll his eyes, but he was able to nod.

“Good, so how did it go?”

“I did fine. They gave me the worst pieces to work with though, and no pigments.”

“Which means that you had to work harder to make something worthy. A good test of your skills is never going to be having the best available to you. Trust in your teachers,” she sighed, the beads in her braids clinking together. “I can see you practically vibrating Ruvyn, go on then. Go have fun. Be careful. Check in. I love you.”

“Love you too maahm,” Ruvyn hastily called over his shoulder as he swam off. There was so much to do and so little time to do it in.

The way to the city center of Erdra was through the old housing domes. The older houses like his hadn’t been restructured when the center had and so it was a little duller. The city was now a bright maze of so many colors of coral it could make your head spin. Corym Enrora was the master builder that had designed it when the Chief had decided to take the uppers offer and renew the bond between the magical humans and the merpeople in what they called the Adriatic Sea. The old domes had been made of coral encouraged into shape and then filled with SEAment, though that was the brand name for it. That wasn’t very attractive to most humans, apparently, as the upper world must be very bright.

Passing by baba Fylson Nerisalor, he took a short cut through the algae fields. He didn’t have to wear algae yet, he was too small, but every family in the old district had their own field to grow it. Even with the runic beads for strength and endurance, the woven living algae could break down with the slightest cut. Turning the clothing a mer had worked so hard on into goop.

The newer homes closer to the city had little pockets of space to grow the seaweeds and algae that were woven into clothing, but he had heard that the living spaces inside the city center didn’t have anywhere to grow them at all. That’s probably the younger generations fault, not his but the one above his – so wasteful. They didn’t even grow and weave their own clothing.

Because of them there were now places that prepared clothing in bright colors, available and already woven at the shops, making them a popular cultural phenomenon. At least that’s what the baba, jaja, and maha said when they gathered near his house. Those same elders think it possible the home grown and woven clothes will become so unfashionable to the new generations that the art would be lost entirely if kids stopped eating the right knowledge. But Ruvyn would rather just learn to shape his ink into proper art and wear that like the great great elders did, but maahm said that wasn’t okay for growing mer anymore and he would have to get used to wearing clothes.

When they were over at the house, Nakiasha Perran had said that when they get old enough to be maha, that they wouldn’t talk about how the next generations cause so much of the problems. One of Nakiasha Perran’s partners, Dain Gilxalim, said that he was sure every elder for all of time always blamed the new generations for things because they changed things and the elders wanted everything to stay the same. Dain Gilxalim said when he becomes old enough to be called jaja he will complain only about silly things, like music. But then Nakiasha Perran and Dain Gilxalim’s other partner, Saleh Lialamin, said that when she was old enough to be a baba the three of them would be a trinity of elders and could each complain about something different that was wrong with the younger generations. They all laughed for a long time about it, so it must have been very funny. Even maahm and daah had laughed.

“Oi! Ruvyn! Where you going in such a hurry? Get down here,” shouted Siveril Crasandoral. He was nearly ten revs older than Ruvyn and had kind of been a jerk to him lately. It used to be that Ruvyn looked up to him, but now all he wanted to do was play SpahLoo with the other teenagers. Apparently, turning 15 revs makes you an idiot.

“Loo, Siveril Crasandoral,” Ruvyn said as he slowed down enough for the other boy to catch up. He wasn’t going to stop completely, not today, even if it was kinda rude. “I’m going to see Nakiasha Perran at their stall for nugen.”

“Your parents finally going to get you a proper pet like everyone else your age? Must be hard not even having a nugen. Guess that’s what happens when there’s only two and they have to work so hard, can’t even get you a good pet.”

Ruvyn closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to lose his inks, which was one of the older boys’ favorite things to do with younger kids. They think they’re big deals because they can hold their ink in clear patterns even if they lost their tempers. Ruvyn wasn’t gonna pick on kids younger than him when was finally a teenager. Even if he did figure out how to texture his tail by then, it didn’t give him the right to be mean to smaller mer. And it was a low tide to bring up the fact his parents were a duo instead of the normal trinity.

“I have to go Siveril Crasandoral,” Ruvyn said before swishing off, creating as much turbulence as his little tail could manage. He went as far as he could, as fast as he could before he looked around to see if the teenager had followed him. When he saw he was alone, he continued towards the colorful city center at a more normal speed. He wasn’t quite as excited now as he was earlier, but he thought about how he would get to see the tourists in the center as they tried on their Loo Ba.

Maahm and daah hadn’t let him come so early before, and when they did get there they wouldn’t let him out of their sight for even a moment. Parents. But he had heard from some of the other kids that it was super funny to watch the uppers as they tried to work the Loo Ba.

His parents had told him about how one of his ancestors was on the special project to craft the Loo Ba when the Mer had created the agreements with the upper worlders with magic almost a thousand revs ago. The Mer needed to figure out a way to make the gillyweed effect last longer so that the uppers could visit more. The first Loo Ba made it so that their weak eyes could see in the watery dark and that they had gills to breathe, just like gillyweed, but it wasn’t enough for the Chief at the time. He said that the uppers all had different languages. He said that they needed to be able to move with more grace than a human in the depths of the Mer world. And so the Loo Ba that’s used today was crafted.

It was super difficult to make, though, so the uppers couldn’t keep it when they left the waters. Even master crafters had trouble making a net with so many layers of runic carved beads, the magic had to all line up just right or it would all fall apart. Then they had to make sure that the magic to keep the net clasped around the waists of the human wouldn’t interfere with the other magic. Daah said that was important with runic vessel crafting at the shop too, making sure the magic in one part didn’t mess up the magic in a different part.

Deciding that he could talk with Nakiasha Perran about a nugen later, Ruvyn made his way towards the main dome. There was a resort there that catered to the uppers with air pocket spaces. A great ship would let people off at a special space just above the waters and then humans that lived with the Mer full time would bring them down to the resort. Ships had been around forever, such an old thing to use, it was a wonder that the uppers didn’t use gates like the Mer did when they wanted to get to far waters.

That had only happened during Maahm and Daah’s time though, when the canal waters were stopped and the Chief decided they would have the rings crafted so that the Mer could travel further. With the help of a few uppers, we were even able to get some in strange spots that didn’t seem to connect to the oceans. Now we didn’t have to worry about if the upper worlders decided to close off access to other waters.

Sneaking up close to the the dome, Ruvyn attempted to make out where the uppers were going to try and learn to swim with their Loo Ba. Unlike the gray domes of SEAment out in the old districts, the domes of the inner city were big bright corals gathered together and forced to branch out. In between the limbs of the coral was a magic shield that could be seen through, it was powered by all the runes carved along the whole of the coral. Further inside there were little rooms that couldn’t be seen from outside the clear dome, but it was vastly different from the old district and it’s thick walls.

There!

There was a line of people moving together and in front was a human with a whole bunch of Loo Ba. It must be one of the classes. Ruvyn followed them closely before settling in to watch as they spun out of sorts. Laughing as the Teacher attempted to keep some order. But there was a little upper with wild hair in there that was having a good laugh at the elders who couldn’t swim too!

Ruvyn moved around so that he could see the upper better. He had an elder nearby, but was looking all over.

Whoooops!

He had spotted Ruvyn!

Ruvyn knew from his lessons that uppers often showed teeth as a sign of friendliness, which seemed odd to him, but he gave it a good try. The little upper just sort of blinked at Ruvyn and his exposed teeth, before showing his own teeth.

Maybe Ruvyn could find this little upper when their lessons were done? It might be fun to explore with it. That definitely sounded like a good idea.

18 February 1985

Divination was not a subject for the weak. To have the capability to divine with the degree of accuracy that those at the highest level could, it brought about difficulties that those outside could not understand. Always being open to the interpretations of the signs, listening to the magic as it speaks in any number of ways. It was not an easy life to be so talented.

In Magical Great Britain the understanding and support for talented diviners had eroded to the point that the young woman had been nearly destitute by the time she had interviewed for this position. It was five years ago this month, an auspicious anniversary. One meant for patience, the good of humanity, and traveling.

The woman sighed and shifted the bundle in her arms. She had patience, to a reasonable degree, but it was already wearing thin. For the good of humanity, for her own good, she was not to travel. A single prediction could take all of her life away, all her freedom gone. That was why she now ensured that half the things she said were nonsense. It was better to never be taken seriously, unending imprisonment or worse could await the diviner that everyone knew spoke the truth always.

The corridors seemed to stretch out today, perhaps the school wanted to make her walk longer. She had noticed the other prisoner had taken this month particularly badly. The students spoke of his quiet, cutting ways. It seemed as though everyone always forgot how close they were in age. As if being a professor caused the students to exist as one age forever and the year that they began or ended their schooling slid together and into each other until no one could recognize the adults that had once been schooled at the same time.

She remembered him back then, he was only a few years below, Slytherins and Ravenclaws didn’t usually have animosity between them like the Slytherins and Gryffindors. He and Lily were inseparable for a long time, people talked about it. They were going to break the interhouse relationship odds. She remembered James Potter and his gang as well. Well cut and swaggering James Potter and Sirius Black were the kind of boys that made teenage girls swoon. But as an adult, looking back, they were kind of arseholes.

Having taught for years now, especially while projecting the image that would safekeep her, she’d had her fill of students like them. Luckily, Divination was not a core subject. Long before her time as a student the class was always filled. During the time of her great great grandmother Cassandra, an OWL in the subject was required by multiple professions. Curse Breakers for Gringotts, Healers for St Mungos, the Auror Academy, and even the Construction and Engineering Guild required an OWL of Exceeds Expectations at a minimum. But somehow there had been a breakdown in British Divination, it was considered a wooly subject. Most of the professors here did not even believe it was possible to divine anything using any tool or object. It was being forgotten, left behind to waste away into obscurity.

She had hated that when she was a student, that the Art of Divination was considered a folly subject. A stupid thing that looked good to have, something to give a student an extra OWL. It had infuriated her when she was in school. Then she went out into the real world and the only thing that she was good at was considered such horse sh*t that she didn’t have two knuts to rub together by the time she that took the interview with Headmaster Dumbledore. It seemed like magic was telling her to go, that she could teach students the Truth about Divination. And then her life fell apart. Then she was entrapped in this castle until one defeated the other, jumping at shadows.

Now she was wisely thankful to whomever had started the breakdown of her wooly subject. With time and space, not to mention a powerful wizard who would not let her leave, she realized that this would help keep others safe. Maybe it being a folly subject had already helped others avoid similar fates. So she taught the truth, but she hid in hysterics and dramatics. She didn’t fight to make Divination a core subject, because then it would get too much attention. She let it continue into obscurity.

As such she did not have to deal with the more ridiculous students until they decided that her class was the easy OWL they were looking for and fell asleep during her lectures. Or loudly proclaimed false divining in order to get a laugh. Or to scare someone. Or they laced the incense with hallucinogens.

The less said about that last one the better.

Suffice to say, she would never look at toads the same way ever again.

It’s amazing how much time can change how someone is seen. How one’s perception can change so much with just a little distance. While Potter and his gang did get less destructive across the school, it seemed they had focused on several particular Slytherins and honed their skills on those students instead.

Oh, but the Slytherins gave back as good as they got.

Huffing at her own joke, the woman rolled her eyes and continued on her journey. Her bundle clinking a bit as she shifted it, her arms were starting to tire. As if the victims should just turn the other cheek when they are assaulted. That kind of boys should be boys, lads culture, nonsense that the muggles put up with doesn’t work well in the magical world. Not when the women have been honing their magical skills for centuries.

He wasn’t doing well this month. She understood, sometimes the start of something was the more weighty anniversary. Most didn’t know– why would they? But the three of them knew the changing tide happened five years ago. It started the moment that she predicted someone who would end the Dark Lord. It started the moment she doomed a child to a life of death, or perhaps Death. It was never really clear on that distinction whenever she divined for the poor child.

Thank goodness, the castle had finally allowed her to reach her destination. Now how to open the door? Shifting things around and leaning just so, the young woman opened the door to the crowd of students. She had started up this workshop after her second year teaching and, looking around the room, she could clearly see the gloom and sadness that had compelled her to put it together in the first place. It was held outside of her normal classroom to encourage even students that did not have Divination to partake in this uplifting venture.

Sigh, teenagers. The fallout from Valentine’s Day is always worse for teenagers.

“Good, good. So glad to see you all here. I have here,” she hefted the bag carefully onto the desk, “tea cups from a random of selection of students that drank tea in the Great Hall in the past two days. Now, while I get this sorted up here, can anyone tell me why it is important to be within two days?”

19 February 1985

A dusty little shack in the middle of the woods swayed a bit in the harsh wind. The snow was piled up and untouched all around the shack. The bare branches of the trees creaked and snapped.

There was a cracking sound louder than the branches and suddenly there was a man in the middle of the pristine snow.

He wore a thick wool jacket that might once have been another color, but was now a washed out grey. There were patches on his trousers, much too thin for such cold weather. The white landscape seemed to grey around him, as though the weight he carried could affect the nature that was surrounding him. He trudged to the door of the little shack in his shoes, not boots, slogging through the snow. Finally working the door open, the sad man made his way inside.

Sneezing, Remus took out a handkerchief to blow his nose. There was a thick layer of dust that lay over the whole of the inside. He waved a wand of cyprus and the dust quickly vanished. He took a moment to wonder why he bothered. It wasn’t as though the wolf cared about dust.

He sat on the little bench, before thinking better of it and just laying down.

The day of the full moon was always the worst, even before the wolf came out, his body felt exhausted. He cycled between chills and feverish. He was nauseous at all times and could never keep any food down. But the worst part was the memories, because every full moon brought to both man and wolf the best memories. The times when he had friends who believed in him and would always be there for him. The times when there were others to run with him, others he would not be able to hurt.

The memories hurt. God how they cut through his soul.

He had no one left. He had nothing left. And it was all his fault.

If he hadn’t been a werewolf, then they would have trusted him. They wouldn’t have ever lost faith in him.

The sun slowly lowered itself behind the branches in a glow of reds and oranges. The man whimpering in the shack felt worse and worse, tortured by happy memories and the ghosts of friends that slipped through cracks of pain. When the moon rose above the empty landscape there was snapping of bones and howls of misery.

The wolf panted as it regained balance. Snuffling around the one room shack it found no interesting scents. There were no others here.

Perhaps there were others outside.

Crisp snow met pawed feet as the wolf finally worked the door open.

There were many scents out in the snow and around the trees, the wolf followed them for some time. Howling all the while. He wanted to share his fun with his friends. Where were they? They should be here. They were always here.

The wolf ran a while longer in great circles around the shack, but could not find his companions. His howls became wounded, sad sounds that clawed their way out of his throat. Then his sadness became anger.

In a snarl the wolf attacked the shack. The shack was the reason this was happening. They would be here if it wasn’t for the shack. In moments the last of the thin wood was in pieces and strewn across the snow, now little more than muddy slush.

Its anger not sated in destroying the man’s building, the wolf began to claw at itself. Tearing long gashes across itself. The iron scent of his own blood spurring him further.

He howled a long, low sound that reverberated across the still woods.

19 February 1985

He had been at this crossroads for what felt like ages, but was in reality only a few hours. It was a challenge. He could choose either side and deal with the consequences, or he could patiently wait here for however long it took. Shifting, he looked around again and marked the ways out while he noted just who was making their way through this dark area.

He had destroyed his bookcase again today. They always loved that, made him look just a bit more paranoid. He couldn’t do it too often or the effect might dim a bit, but he got the best results from bibliomancy for this sort of thing. These kids, they were so soft on the subject of Divination that they wouldn’t know it if they saw it happen right in front of them. In fact he could bet that they usually fell for the fake stuff like a muggle.

Sighing and shaking his head at the thought of a grown arse wizard being so bloody stupid, he surveyed the people again.

Today’s kids might not have much sense when it comes to the ancient Art of Divination, but the old families certainly knew what was up. There was no use scrying for anyone who still had those big old houses with the thrice damned impenetrable wards. The wards ran off old school magics, following around the inhabitants of the house for awhile even when they were far away from the actual building. You couldn’t scry for anything happening in the house, you couldn’t even follow up on the smug wankers when they left the house to do despicable things.

He could admit it was clever.

That didn’t make him like it though.

There was always a loophole somewhere, even in these old magics. That’s why he was standing out here freezing his nibs off at a crossroads in Leeds, middle of Merlin be damned February. He’d focused his intent on the good for nothing that the wanker was to be meeting up with and then blasted apart his bookshelf. He’d given a few good unintelligible yells for effect, no one would argue on him being bloody dramatic. Then carefully feeling through his magic he selected a word from one of the books that was open on his office floor. He did it again. And again. He chose word after word until his magic told him to stop, that the divining had come to an end.

The little sh*ts that didn’t have the warding protections of the old families, but worked with them on dark dealings, could be scried for though. And from there he could gather the information he needed to take down the biggest, smuggest, darkest sons of bitches that were polluting society. Which was why he was waiting at this seemingly normal intersection in a seemingly normal muggle neighborhood in Leeds, freezing even through his extra layers and the invisibility cloak he was wearing. He’d cast a charm to help him warm up, but he knew that the sneaky twats would have something to detect active magical use. That damn thing was too common amongst the worst sort, something had to be done. But now he just had to wait for his target to show up and lead the way to wherever this secret meeting place was in Leads.

Waiting at co*ckshott Lane and Armley Ridge Road.

That was one hell of a reading. It wasn’t like he could tell anyone how he had come by this intel, but he was doubly glad he didn’t have to explain that his lead took him to such an interestingly named crossroad.

He didn’t divine for leads all of the time. He did have good connections and a decent head on his shoulders, but when things got sticky because of Politics – that’s when he pulled out the divining skills. Smug wankers thought they could get away with it, but he would follow up on every piece of intel he had. Even if it didn’t stick, he had the satisfaction of being the thorn in their backside. Repeatedly.

That was the worst part of the war. It never really ended. So the Potter kid managed to take out Voldesh*t, what about the hundred plus that went around torturing people and setting fire to things? Towards the end the sh*t Eaters had started to be confident enough to go outside the bounds of Magical Britain. They targeted places that were especially accepting of muggles, muggleborns, even squibs. Never understood the squibs thing, to be honest. Wasn’t their whole theme to be against muggles and muggles becoming magic? Wasn’t a squib the opposite of that?

Though it might be because many squibs proved that they could do just fine in the magical side of the world with little to no magic capabilities. His cousin was a kinda famous squib, not many wizards could speak to animals. For a squib to have an animal speak ability, but not use a wand? Oh, boy – she was definitely a target. She knew it too.

Quietly, slowly, with minimal movement and noise, he huffed a few breaths into his hands and rubbed them together. It wasn’t difficult to interpret his reading, but it didn’t really give an exact time and it had been a few hours already. He might freeze before they decided to show up.

His cousin was something else though. Albus had already started putting together an informal group to keep an eye on dark wizard activity that had started getting a little too common. But even Albus hadn’t realized the squibs were going missing, some would turn up dead but most just disappeared. It was his cousin that had figured out it was connected to the rolls made for those little coin thingies the squibs got so they could get into places like Diagon or call the Knight Bus and the like. The rolls had started out in the sixties after a lotta protests and riots, what one might call “political upheaval” in polite company. The dark wizards were using it like a shopping list.

Albus was good at the big picture stuff, and he was a damn good fighter, but he didn’t realize how important it was to have all the information for the big picture. Sometimes Albus had acted on guesses or suppositions too much for his tastes. Always have more intel than you think you need before you act, as his pa would say. As far as he could tell, he and his cousin were the ones bringing in most of the intel up until the very end of the war. Oh, he knew who the person was that was probably bringing in new intel towards the end. He didn’t care, but he knew. Once a sh*t Eater, always a sh*t Eater in his opinion.

And it wasn’t even his intel that had brought a halt to the greater hostilities.

Most people say the end of the war, but he wasn’t going to delude himself like that. Only about a third of the people involved in Voldesh*t’s little army were actually put away. And the ones left just… went back to being pricks who hid how evil they were, for the most part. Some of them didn’t bother to hide it. Using old money, and money they stole from good wizards, they made things worse all while enjoying dark luxuries that would make most sick.

Some had tried to fake their deaths after the war, not many just a couple, but that hadn’t worked out well for them. At least two had forgotten that they would still show up alive in the Goblin Nation’s Archive even if they passed their titles on to their kid with an acceleration writ. That was a mess of paperwork to get to that information from the goblins. But there was one in particular that he always found a bit funny.

The sh*t Eater had set it all up to have a few witnesses to his “death” so that they could confirm everything in his confunded books that said he was dead. What he hadn’t counted on was the damn thestrals! They might have all had their memories modified in a most masterful way, but that didn’t matter to thestral magic. When one third of the witnesses, who had supposedly watched him die without being able to do anything, couldn’t see the bloody things the whole case blew open.

He relaxed and sighed a bit, breath fogging in front of him before it was caught by the invisibility cloak, that case always managed to put a smile on his face.

He’d snuck a bit of divining in on that one too. They were out in the wilderness though, so he couldn’t just start throwing books around. He wasn’t that funny. The “deceased” would have still been subject to the old wards and couldn’t be scried on, but that didn’t apply to the witnesses. So he took a few moments to himself a little ways from the scene where he and the others had been questioning the witnesses to this supposedly violent death.

There were a couple of things he could try with a few sticks, some rhabdomancy, but they often needed a great deal of prep or were more about finding things than finding information. He settled on trying nephomancy, it was a clear day with a few clouds here and there. His Aunt Thyia had loved to lay out on the grass and read the clouds. She was capable of reading so much from such an astounding variety of methods, but her favorite was always nephomancy. When he had read and interpreted a need for thestrals, admittedly, he had struggled a bit. Did the need for horses of death mean that everything was as it appeared in this case? Eventually, though, he had convinced himself and a buddy who owed him a favor that a thestral was needed. When he brought it out to show the witnesses it was yet another moment that solidified his legacy. Bloody good, but f*cking mad.

Ah, finally. There it is. What a twist.

The opening to the shady underground den is actually underground. His target, finally showing up, was opening a hatch with his wand to go under the nearby golf course. Wasn’t that a bitch? If they could catch enough people going in, they’d be able to figure the key and go in themselves. But they couldn’t just go in arresting people for existing under a muggle golf course.

Laughing to himself, he turned on the spot. This was going to be a fun undercover operation.

Chapter 18: Small Mer Seas

Chapter Text

18 February 1985

“Look at this,” Harry sung as he held up a small object towards me.

On closer inspection the crystal sphere seemed to hold a small coral home with little moving fish that swam about. It seemed to be the Mer equivalent of a snow globe. Harry was happily working his way through the small stall, picking up every single sphere and studying the animations within them. I looked for a price while he made his way through the merchandise, but nothing appeared to be listed at the stall or on the spheres.

We had spent the morning on a balloon ride over Luxor before finishing up our tour on the Nile with a trip to the Temple of Hatshepsut. Then we had set off to the Mediterranean in an airship, our destination was the grand Mer city of Erdra in the Adriatic. It was the night before Carnival and we had plans to celebrate in both Venice and Erdra.

This day is associated with traditions that date back thousands of years to pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including Saturnalia and Lupercalia, as well as more modern celebrations like Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, and Shrove Tuesday. Carnival, as they call it in Italy, had also become a day of celebration between the Mer of the Mediterranean and the surrounding magical communities because of the pact between them.

When the lands surrounding the Adriatic Sea were torn apart by war, the magical humans found a way to unite and formed a peaceful pact between themselves and the Mer. Then as the witch hunts began, magical beings retreated into hiding, the larger communities along the west and north of the Adriatic banded together to form a single magical community. The areas of Italy and Greece opted to remain separate and observe the borders as prescribed by non magicals, but were still considered allies.

A century ago, the magical communities and the Mer renewed their pact, allowing humans to visit the underwater city and villages of the Mer. The Chief of the Mer was enthusiastic about the idea, and the communities worked together to establish the Grand Resort in Erdra, which became a popular destination for magical people from all over the world. The Tuesday of Shrovetide was the biggest day of celebration, marking the signing of the pacts after weeks of smaller parties.

“Excuse me,” I sung to the mer at the register, “How much are these?”

I had read about the interesting development of currency in the Mer population. They had started as a barter system hundreds of years ago, but as the humans they interacted with moved more towards metal bars and pieces for money they had to adapt in order to continue their association. They still had a mainly barter system between themselves, using the prescribed metal that humans found value in to purchase or trade with them. When humans began using paper more and more as time went on, they had to adapt again. It was actually a major undertaking, they researched human currency systems all over the world and decided that they would make a non currency.

“Loo, Morro Dedra, it is the colors which tell the pricing of objects in Erdra. Half a bar is the white color here and then you have the different hues for each bar number,” patiently sung the Mer at the stall. Harry and I were in a practice dome and the Mer here were perhaps more understanding of such clumsiness while we learned to work with our Safety Nets.

The Mer had figured out a way to recreate, improve even, the way that gillyweed worked. All one had to do was wear a sarong that looked like thick strung netting, wrapped around the waist and secured with a large silver buckle. It only went to the knee, but it would help us swim in a more Mer way in addition to the other attributes.

I couldn't help but wonder why the Safety Nets weren't used during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. As it turned out, the Nets were too valuable and labor intensive to be given away or even bought. Attempting to steal one would result in forceful pursuit by the surrounding magical communities, and if it could not be recovered, the thief would be required to work off the debt with hard labor under the direction of the Chief of the Mer. The current debt was equivalent to 205 years of labor.

I looked around the stall and understood just how stupid I had been with my clumsy question.

Coming from a future where money was not tied to gold, or any other fixed valuable of physical origin, the Mer’s non currency made perfect sense. They basically invented eCurrency, which used to be called crypto currency, several decades early. The Mer ran a completely digital currency without having anything digital, just magical. Instead, their bank held small amounts of Goblin and human money for exchange and a long detailed system of magical accounts for visitors to put the crypto currency into.

The real problem was less the currency and more with the travel guides that had described the color based number system for each bar. There was a nice graph with each color pictured and their numerical value for Mer, Goblin, and British Muggle currencies. But I could see that there was no tag, no sticker, no little plaque which featured the colors in an order that I could then practice deciphering and parsing into numbers. When the shopkeep pointed it out to me I felt incredibly stupid. Why would they have such things in this completely different environment? The only reason they called their currency bar was because that was how humans on the surface had first introduced them to it. When would the Mer have been introduced to price tags?

Instead there were little ribbons that floated upwards in the water, displaying the different prices for each section of the stall. They were waving in the current letting anyone who wasn’t an absolute moron know that most of the spheres were only four and a half bars. A perfectly reasonable price, if I did the math right. Even if I didn’t, we were still getting one.

It was good that the resort had more than just swimming practice at this Safety Net introduction. This way even people who thought they had read enough, could do silly things and be corrected without anyone feeling insulted. Harry and I had met with the rest of our tourist group in the lobby just a short while after arriving in Erdra to start our lessons.

“Thank you all for being prompt,” our host had said before we set out into the practice domes. “My name is Luca and you will be seeing a lot of me during your stay here at the Grand Resort of Erdra.” Having only read the name of this grand city, instead of hearing it, I learned at that moment I had been mispronouncing it. Luca said “Air Truh,” the rolling of the “r” causing it to sound more like a “t” and not at all like what I had thought.

Which meant when we arrived and exchanged our money for a shiny bronze colored disc about the size of my palm that could be used with the registers at various stalls, I had made a fool out of myself by mispronouncing the name of the city.

“If you have any questions or concerns,” he continued, “feel free to approach me about them. Now, these are the Nets that you will be able to use during your stay with us. These must be returned before you leave or the consequences will be most unpleasant.”

Harry and I followed Luca as he lead our group of twenty or so towards a smaller dome. The whole resort was made up of interconnecting domes, webs of colorful magical coral with clear shielding in between. We could make out fish and merpeople swimming around outside the barrier. It looked as though the resort just continued, people in the sarong like Nets could be seen milling about in the waters as well.

It was amazing what this Mer magic could do!

The vast Mer city was hidden with special magics that they had crafted, both to hide it from others and to allow for it to be so large. When we had arrived, we weren’t sure if the magics would interfere with our suitcase. Just in case, we had taken out the clothing and things we would need while we were here. We weren’t doing too much the first day, just checking in and doing our Safety Net training. Mer magic was a complete unknown to me and that made me cautious.

As we entered a small corridor, the door closing behind us, Luca handed each of us our own Net and assisted us in putting them on properly. There was barely a couple feet of water in the hall, but once we were all properly dressed for our drills the water began rising.

“As you’ll notice the Loo Ba, or Safety Net, will alter your natural buoyancy,” Luca sang, “Simply allow yourself to be surrounded by the water as it flows into the corridor.”

Speaking with the Loo Ba on was very different as well. The Nets had complex magics that allowed all of us to understand each other underwater, regardless of our native languages, but Harry and I had learned to speak Mermish at the Euro-Glyph School as one of the four languages we learned before leaving. This allowed us to speak in what definitely felt like a more natural way. But even in the air, as the water rose, all of us had an additional melodic sound reverberating through our words when we spoke.

Harry and I had been practicing with water since the beginning of our holiday. We were ready for this adventure and the new pool waiting for us at home. But that didn’t mean the natural inclination towards panic when one is being slowly surrounded by water wouldn’t pop up. The slight twitching and agitated mumbles from the rest of the group attested to the discomfort of the others. Luca seemed prepared for this, however, and was slowly making his way through the crowd, speaking all the while to calm everyone as we submerged for the first time.

With the children being so much shorter than the adults, Luca had recommended that we all crouch to our children’s height. This made the whole experience much more bearable for me as I could simply hold Harry and close my eyes while the water overtook us, his dyed blond hair brushing against my face. The waiting would have gotten to me otherwise.

Once we were all submerged, and calm, the door on the other side of the corridor opened up and Luca herded us through. It was difficult to figure out how to swim. My legs and arms seemed almost thicker, though they did not appear to have changed physically. Instead of the more conventional up and down kicking I was used to, Luca was encouraging us to swim with a side to side motion. It was more fish like in nature, but it must only work by magic for surely the motion wouldn’t propel us like it did without magic.

Out in a large dome, fully submerged, we began trying to get the basics down. We would only be able to visit the rest of the city after passing our Safety Net class. I had hoped that Harry and I could do a small tour that night, though I thought it might be difficult with all the festivities.

Harry and the other children seemed to catch on a bit faster than the adults. While the other adults and I tried to figure things out the children were left to watch us struggle.

Finally getting the hang of things, I went over to encourage Harry to play with me. It would allow us to gain better dexterity and confidence in the water. We spent some time talking in our musical voices before eventually going off to play. Apparently, Harry had noticed a young mer outside the dome watching us as we practiced. He was very excited to get the chance to meet some mer in person.

“Wonderfully done,” sung Luca, his voice even more melodic in the water thanks to the Loo Ba. “Now that everyone has gotten more accustomed to the use of the Loo Ba we will move further into the submerged domes of the resort. This will allow you to interact with others and explore in a more controlled environment. After an hour, we will reconvene in this practice dome before going back into the main air dome. We want to ensure that you are capable and comfortable with leaving submerged environments as well.”

The seller of the Mer snow globe equivalent tapped in the number total into her register and I touched my currency disc to it for the transfer. It was very advanced as far as money exchange and currency systems went for the time period, perhaps without anyone realizing just how ahead of the times they were. Afterall, people still used cheques to pay for groceries when they didn’t have enough cash on hand.

After paying for Harry’s little globe, we had an interesting few moments of trying to figure out how to swim and carry things at the same time.

As our little group floated through a selection of stalls and vendors, Luca was making sure to check in on everyone and answering their questions. While Harry and I were looking over some interesting foods, we overheard a conversation between Luca and the parents of a small family.

“What is this Loo Moo Row Day tRa that they keep saying to us?”

Luca explained that the translation spells don't always have a similar enough word to translate, sometimes the original word is left as is. For instance, the Mer word for both “hello” and “goodbye” is “Loo,” which is why the Safety Nets are called “Loo Ba,” meaning “Hello Friendly/Trader/Upper worlder.” Luca clarified that because there is no direct translation for the Mer word in their language, it remains as “Loo Ba.”

The use of "Morro Dedra" is a part of the respectful culture of the Mer. The Mer have a unique way of identifying each other that differs from many cultures in the upper world. They address each other and others by their full name, except for family members or romantic partners. It would be considered extremely impolite to call someone by any other name or to shorten someone’s name without their permission. Additionally, the Mer refer to people they don't know as “Morro Dedra,” meaning “Customer” or “Guest” and “from far away” or “from a foreign place.” Until a relationship is established they would continue to refer to visitors like us in such a formal and polite manner. The other way around was for the customer to address the person working as "Tahmen."

There was suddenly what would have passed for a gasp, if any of us were breathing air at the moment, and my elbow was tugged down to a more Harry friendly level by the little boy himself. Following his gaze, I saw a small mer making his way through the stalls. It was odd because, unless they worked at the stalls, this part of the resort was solely for teaching humans how to maneuver through the underwater environment and very few mer would be here for any other reason.

“Uuurm,” the little mer stumbled when it got closer to us. I was a little anxious of someone who would seek Harry out so intentionally, but some random kid was very unlikely to be trying to kill him or report back to his enemies.

I decided to try out the proper Mer greeting that I had recently learned. “Loo,” I said gently, and Harry quickly followed suit.

“Hello!” the mer loudly and excitedly exclaimed. He introduced himself as Ruvyn Rophyra, enunciating each word carefully and slowly. Despite his awkwardness, I found him adorable and tried to suppress a smile.

Harry gave a smile and a wave that the little mer, Ruvyn Rophyra, returned clumsily. There was a slight chortle and shuffling movement from behind me, when I looked the shopkeep had turned away to organize another part of their stall. When I turned back, Harry and Ruvyn Rophyra had already started a stilted conversation about the things we had seen in this practice marketplace.

“... I was going to swim out to get a Spresso from Tassarion Elawraek. She makes the best Spresso. Don’t think they have much choice of food here, you’re better off waiting to get to the real market, I think.”

“What’s a Spresso,” Harry asked his new acquaintance.

“Well, you have liquid drinks and things on the land, right?” Harry nodded. “We live in liquid. So that’s not something we can really do. Instead we have these cube type shaped things that are squishy and filled with flavor. Spresso is my favorite.”

Harry looked up at me with a quizzically hopeful expression.

“From what I read in our books, most of the food has a gelatin like structure to it. It’s like jellies that taste like dinner. Or in the case of Spresso, taste like coffee. That was an interesting tangent the book went on, how food flavors of the upper world influenced the Mer culinary world.”

“Very well done everyone,” came the booming voice of Luca over the market. “This ends the marketplace portion of our Safety Net class. We will now make our way back to the air dome, allowing you to experience the reentry in a controlled and regulated way. After that you will have officially passed and be allowed to move around freely. Please, do not forget to return your Loo Ba at the end of your visit to the city. You will not like what happens if you forget. Follow me this way please, back towards where we started earlier.”

“I can meet you at the official entrance point?” Ruvyn Rophyra offered. “I was going to go out to the best stalls anyway. I’m officially allowed to, all by myself, but I could show you where they are. If you wanted?”

With Harry looking up at me so hopefully, how could I say no?

As the kid wove us through the watery crowds of the true marketplace, I wondered at my growing anxiety. The markets of Egypt had surely been just as crowded, why become anxious about a crowd now?

After the panic attack - and very small mental breakdown - I had on our dahabiya tour of the Nile, the overwhelming sensations had again receded. Perhaps it was the underwater nature of the square that made it feel more inescapable. Though, the children were having fun and the mood of the crowd was happy anticipation. But I kept catching quick movements from the corner of my eyes, causing adrenaline to unfurl in an effort to be ready for action.

Perhaps I had hit my wall. It took me long enough, I suppose. I had counseled others who had worked with me to gather information during the war when they hit their wall.

When living in such a heightened sense of panic and danger became too much for them to take. The small quick movements of innocent strangers. The unexpected noises. The people who got in the way of easy exits. A lot had happened to me since I died, decades from now, and woken up as a whole new person. It was all starting to catch up with me. I was being more jumpy than was reasonable.

It was the song.

That was what the big difference was between the crowded markets and tourist spots we had visited, the song.

Markets and gathering places were often noisy, but in the Agorin everyone was speaking Mermish. Or rather they were singing it. Though Mermish sounded like screeching above water, when spoken underwater it caused everything to have a melodic quality. Those of us wearing the Loo Ba were having our native languages translated to Mermish so that we could understand each other. The Loo Ba translation causing a jarring contrast against the songs of the native Mer. Though, because Harry and I could actually speak Mermish, our speech was more like that of the merpeople around us.

I floated for a moment and listened intently while the boys were busy looking through Celebration Day favors. It was quite peculiar to hear what amounted to the music of Babymetal, Irving Berlin, Oasis, and Deviant Souls– their greatest hits being played all at once, but at somehow softer volumes. As though they were each their own intense accents in song. My brain was picking up on and freaking out over the strangeness of the conflicting melodies. I didn’t even know how to begin trying to cope with such a deviation from my norm.

“And this one will let out light in different patterns. I like the blue ones.”

“Can we get one?” Harry asked me.

I did try to smile at him, but it must have come out more like a grimace since Harry shrunk into himself and looked away. Obviously anxiety was being confused as anger, which was totally understandable given his background. But Sweet Fanny Adams I did not want to go into an overly emotional discussion with the child in front of his new friend in a large crowd of singing beings. I took a deep breath in, realized as I exhaled that this was not actually breathing, and then nearly had an existential crisis as to why I felt the need to breathe while underwater.

“I don’t think we can use those inside the resort,” I said as I shook my head. “It might be better to make sure anything we purchase is allowed.”

Harry gave a nod and looked up at me with a shy smile. I counted it as a win.

“You do have some spending money left, since we didn’t spend much in Luxor this morning. For right now, let’s not get anything that seems to be explosive like fireworks. There’s plenty here and we will have plenty of time to look around, a whole week, so if you decide you want something later the stalls will still be up until the end of the month. We can just come back.”

Harry nodded, but Ruvyn Rophyra just shrugged and moved on to the next thing that he thought was the greatest thing ever. I tried to relax a little bit more, but the anxiety was still churning beneath the surface. I really needed to not be in the middle of this cacophony.

“Ruvyn Rophyra, is there somewhere that’s a little less chaotic? There’s an awful lot of people around…”

“Oh, sure. Tassarion Elawraek has a stall and the shop has a little area to eat at, it won’t be so busy over there. But there’s still waaay more people than normal ‘cause of the Celebration.”

“Well, maybe we should go and try that Spresso you were talking about earlier. What do you say?”

As the kid quickly led us away, I kept trying to not have a melt down. There was too much to process and my brain was quickly calling it quits. My stomach turned, as I realized I had effectively come out without any weapons in a thin disguise so that the Loo Ba wouldn’t have any interference. We hadn’t even worn our Fabulousa charms, just used a temporary dye on our hair, and it was packed with magical people crowded against the mer.

“Here it is!” proclaimed Ruvyn Rophyra, his arms thrown wide to show off the stall in a patch of more open waters. Tassarion Elawraek’s food stall was obviously not as temporary as the colorful ones nearer to the resort. Where those had seemed almost like tents set up on concrete blocks, this was made of shining coral with shields in between to create windows into the shop. The oranges and pinks of the building created an intricate web dome and, as we entered, I was distracted enough by the stray thought of colors at this depth to calm down. The Loo Ba magically affect the eyes so that we can “see” underwater, but colors rely on the amount of light that can be refracted off the surface of an object. Would we even be able to see the bright colors on the outside of the shop without the Loo Ba? What would the colors be if we saw them on the surface?

As Harry pulled me into the shop, my brain quieted from its anxious state and I was able to give a real smile as I looked around the interior. Who would have thought a coffee shop under the sea would look just like any other coffee shop on the surface? It almost looked like a Starbucks. There were high pedestal like tables with bar chairs, though the chairs had a cushioned ring around it to create a low backing. It was much more peaceful here. I felt as though I could finally relax. I slowly realized that I had misunderstood him, he had led us to the real shop instead of the stall he had wanted to visit.

“Loo, Ruvyn Rophyra!” sung a large mer with a fascinating collar of tattoos that seemed to mimic the shop’s coral dome.

“Loo, Faraine Balharice! I brought some upper worlders with me. They are called Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer.”

“Loo, Morro Dedra! Welcome to our shop, Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer.”

“Loo, Tahmen. Ruvyn Rophyra has been showing us around the Agorin. My grandson and I have been quite appreciative, but I needed to be away from the big crowds for a bit of rest.”

“That is very nice of Ruvyn, it is the first Celebration Day he has been old enough to wander on his own. Good that he has made a friend, even better that he has made a good impression. We have a wonderful assortment of Mer delights here at Neremyn Beigeiros. My partners and I make everything ourselves. I am glad that you have come to the shop, instead of making your way to the stall that Tassarion is working nearer to the center of the Agorin. It is very popular during Celebration and would be too much for you perhaps.”

As the mer spoke they motioned us closer to the counter, which looked very much like a bakery in appearance. Under domed glass were a rainbow of colors in all different shapes and sizes. Some were small squares that looked like Turkish Delight, some were the size of eggs and a mix of colors that would fit in with Robert Delaunay’s later works. Colors that were magically moving. There were little plaques next to each of them describing the food, probably made just for the confused and clumsy upper worlders. I could see that the Spresso was the most popular as it came in a variety of flavors. Spresso with caramel flavor, Spresso with mocha flavor, Spresso with spice flavor.

“How do you get the caramel into the those little cubes, Tahmen?”

“Oh, we didn’t use to have so many flavors. We have to trade with the upper worlders to get them. Spresso was the first ever upper world flavor to become popular with all the Mer. Over, maybe… two decades? We have been bringing more flavors in through our contacts in the upper world magic communities. They make the caramel and put it in the dispenser. The dispenser comes down to us and we can put it all together to make a mim or lat of whatever.”

“What’s a mim?” Harry asked in a very shy voice.

Faraine Balharice gave a little chuckle and reached over take out two of the Spresso treats, the one that was the size of a Turkish delight and the other twice as tall. “A mim is the little one, the lat is the bigger one. They don’t have to be cubes, though. I’ve got all shapes and sizes. Gotta keep it pretty and interesting, wouldn’t want to get boring.”

“It’s about volume then?” I asked, trying to think if it would be acceptable for such a young child to have a mim of Spresso. If it was anything like the Starbucks drinks I was used to, it was probably more sugar than actual coffee. Not that it was better, but it would be a dessert treat instead.

“Yes, yes. The mim Spresso, it is maybe roughly a small size drink for most countries. Ruvyn here is not allowed to have a lat of Spresso, for instance. But he can have a mim if he wants one.”

“Yes, please Faraine Balharice,” came the sheepish reply. From the looks exchanged between them, I got the feeling he may have thought to try and get away with a larger size. “And a morriel with the pickled urchin please.”

A long, thin rectangular plate appeared from behind the counter and the small mim of Spresso was placed in one corner. On the other side of the plate the morriel was added, it looked like wrapped Lembas bread to be honest. The square of green leaves hid within it, what the plaque described as, “the sandwich of the sea.”

“Do you see anything you would like to try Christian?” Harry pointed to a small softly glowing sphere that had moving yellow and pink swirls lazily drifting on a soft white cloud. The plaque read, “Hot Stuff! Fire Coral is fermented with an upper world hot pepper before being mixed into Momer dough with Yellow Sparkling Jahma.”

“Those are real spicy,” said Ruvyn Rophyra. “I tried one once and it was way too much fire for me.”

“Well, Christian does like spicy food so I think he can have one to try. And then how about one of those morriel? I’m going to get the one with wakame and crab. This green crystal shaped one sounds interesting too, a Spirulina and Pakkha melon mim for me.”

“I think I want the Sole with… uhh- Pickled Thin Sliced Squid,” said Harry slowly while pointing to the morriel. “Can I have a Spresso too? Please?”

“Okay, we will each have one mim of Spresso too.” Looking back up to place our orders, I found that they were already laid out for us on the counter. Swimming over a little to the register, I paid for our food. “Thank you so much, Tahmen.”

“Of course, welcome to Erdra. I hope that your stay during the Celebrations is very enjoyable.”

Harry and I carefully kept hold of our plates as we swam behind Ruvyn Rophyra towards one of the tables. The chair was high enough so that the mer could easily relax to eat without worrying about their long tails getting in the way. The cushion on the chairs, that I had seen when we came in, was not in anyway a cushion as I had known it before. It was almost what I imagined an anemone might be like if one were a clown fish, it verged on being a short fluffy tuffet with a curved back that hugged us into the seats.

I watched as Ruvyn Rophyra got down to the business of eating. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was supposed to remove the leaves on the outside of the “sandwich of the sea” and was glad to watch him nibble on his own morriel so that I knew to leave them on. The leaves on the outside were probably some type of seaweed and, though they looked perfectly preserved, they had become a gel like substance wrapped around the fillings of the morriel. Beneath the gel was the momer dough, which I knew was used in many of their foods, it was the consistency of mochi dough and probably helped to hold the flavors together. The crab and wakame was mixed with some type of thick spread inside of the momer. Taking small nibbles as I figured out how to eat underwater with the magical changes provided by the Loo Ba, I enjoyed a few moments of calm.

This was exactly what I needed. There were some who were softly conversing over their food, but the noise level was significantly reduced and the shop itself seemed to be just over half full. Harry was happily munching on his Fire Coral bun, each bite pushing the magical coloring into faster waves of color. I took an experimental nibble of the bright green crystal I had gotten with my meal. It had a very honeydew and floral taste to it and the consistency reminded me of jelly babies or maybe kohakutou. A sort of harder jelly that would crumble.

Harry finished the remnants of his Fire Coral bun and picked up his mim of Spresso. I picked up my own and we tried them at the same time. It was pleasant, but it had a more milk and sugary taste than espresso. We smiled at each other before we turned our attention back to the morriels.

It didn’t take us long to finish up the lovely little meal. It was a great introduction to the food of the Merpeople in the Adriatic, even if the reason for it was to find a calmer place away from the crowds. Learning to eat in the underwater environment wasn’t as difficult as I had worried. Magic is wonderful. But having finished meant we would need to go back out into the crowd and I wasn’t certain that I could manage that with how I had reacted earlier.

“I think we have time to see one more stall before we head back into the resort. We have a very full day planned for tomorrow. What do you want to show Christian the most Ruvyn Rophyra?”

“Well… I was going to go and see what kind of nugen Nakiasha Perran has at their stall. They always make sure to keep the very best and most interesting looking ones to sell during Celebration.”

“What’s a nugen?”

The mer looked contemplative for a moment before responding to Harry. “It’s a small animal that lots of kids have as pets. But I don’t know if upper worlders have them at all.”

“A pet shop? That sounds like fun, what do you think Christian? Do you want to go with Ruvyn Rophyra to look at pets?”

Harry smiled and nodded. We waved at Faraine Balharice and thanked them again on our way out.

The noise of different songs increased as we got closer to the main, touristy part of the Agorin. Aware of what had caused my brain to put me into an anxious high alert, I was able to keep myself calmer and began to enjoy the little adventure more than I had earlier. Harry and the kid swam a little ahead, talking of this and that, with Harry looking over his shoulder for me on occasion. His blond hair made quite the difference in appearance, no matter what my paranoia was trying to tell me. The tourists around us could have been British tourists and they wouldn’t recognize The Boy Who Lived with wild blond hair whisping around him as he turned his head this way and that, taking in all the sights of the Celebration.

“Ruvyn Rophyra!” boomed a loud voice from beneath a colorful awning.

As the three of us got closer I could tell that the mer had a rough braid of colors wrapped around their abdomen that matched the colors of their stall. According to our books on the Merpeople of the Adriatic, this braid was the traditional wrap for a master. I was fascinated at getting to meet a master, regardless of what they were master of, and tried to keep myself from asking a dozen questions before even being introduced.

“Loo Nakiasha Perran! These are my new friends Ingrid Weber and her grandson Christian Fischer. We just came from Neremyn Beigeiros. They had our food for the very first time ever!”

“Loo, Morro Dedra!” Nakiasha Perran sung, laughing at Ruvyn Rophyra’s obvious exuberance. “Welcome to our stall, Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer. We have plenty of colorful nugen for the discerning tastes of every being.”

Harry and I swam closer and took a careful look at these small pets. They were no bigger than Harry’s hand and there was a wide variety of colors. They floated in small clear boxes that had bits of coral and vegetation in them. Their jelly like bodies rippled and many had what appeared to be eyestalks or thick antennae.

“What exactly is a nugen, Tahmen?”

“They are a special magical breed of sea slug, though the proper term for this specific group is nudibranch. We specially bread the mundane slugs with magical slugs to acquire fascinating colors. This one for instance, it is a cross with a dorid nudibranch called Hexabranchus sanguineus which literally means blood-colored six-gills. But often it is known as the Spanish Dancer for how this flat round red slug can dance in its movements across the waters. It’s one of our larger pets.”

The boys were very seriously discussing the benefits of one colored sea slug over the other. From what I could overhear, Ruvyn Rophyra had been given permission to buy his first pet and was having difficulty deciding on which one to get.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Tahmen,” I started carefully, “I read that this braiding means you are a master of a subject. Is it specific to what you do for your business?”

“Aye, ya ya. My mastery is in the breeding and care of nugen. One of my partners has a mastery in trade, which perhaps is different for upper worlders. It is the exchanging of goods. One must know a very many things about very many things to have such a mastery. She helps to make sure that the business part of the business continues on properly.”

“That’s so interesting. I’m involved in creatures myself and have found that the business part can be difficult to maintain when your focus is so much on the creatures. You said one of your partners, does your other partner have a different mastery?”

“Ah, politicians. Not so interesting as nugen,” they said with a hearty laugh. “He is a guild mer through and through. I know this is different from what upper worlders often consider the norm.”

“The norm for politicians? Well, I suppose you could call the different parties guilds and it wouldn’t really change much.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant–”

“Gran can I get a nugen? Look at this purple one it looks like it’s glowing!”

“Wow, that’s amazing Christian. But I don’t think we would be able to take such good care of a sea creature back home. Especially, with our other pets. I’d think they would also be sad to be so far from the sea. If you really want a pet, ask again in a year or so and we can talk about it then.”

“Ruvyn did your maahm and daah decide you could get a pet finally?”

“I’m five revs already, Nakiasha Perran and responsible enough to finish my lesson ones all on my own. I even get to go to Celebration by myself. They are very impressed with how capable I am.”

The older mer gave the young kid a thoroughly unimpressed look before shaking his head.

“That’s wonderful Ruvyn, but your maahm Amrynn Qijeon and your daah Faelyn Yelgeiros would have my tail if I let their only breached kid get a nugen without their explicit permission.”

Ruvyn Rophyra had a pout that could melt hearts in a wide radius, but it appeared to not work on the nugen seller at all. He must be immune.

“Oh, alright. They will let me though.”

“Of course,” Nakiasha Perran said with little conviction. As the boys went back to their fantasies about the pets they wished they could have, we gave a little knowing look to each other. “Kids these days. Though, do upper worlders call their young kids? Always confused me.”

“Some do,” I replied, “Though there are plenty of other words to use instead. I did a little prep work before we came to Erdra to read up on culture, so I at least knew that you called your young kids and how the money system worked. That sort of thing. Most of my prep was planning out what to do during our stay.”

“There’s the obvious Celebration activities, but you should also see our History Center at the Learning Annex.”

“It’s on my list for after Celebration Day. I thought it would be a nice easy, calm thing to do after all the excitement we have packed into that day.”

“That it is and if you do– OoOp Ruvyn Rophyra I think someone is trying to get your attention!”

Coming towards us was a mer that appeared to be the same age as Nakiasha Perran. The braid around them was made of bright silver, an unusual color in such a colorful world. Their hair was in long braids past their elbows, with white and silver beads in artful arrangements.

“Thought I might find you here Ruvyn,” they said in a deep song.

“Daah! Come meet my new friend!”

The kid pulled Harry out from where he was examining a bright pink and green nugen, bringing him closer to the mer that was apparently his father.

“Loo,” Harry said sheepishly before looking towards me for help.

“Loo, I’m Ingrid Weber and this is my grandson Christian Fischer. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Loo, Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer. I’m the daah of Ruvyn Rophyra, if you couldn’t tell. I am called Faelyn Yelgeiros.”

“My daah is the best in the whole city for lusters and when I grow up enough I get to help in the shop too. But I’m not old enough yet, I can’t carry the heavy vessels or make my own runes. But I will be soon.”

“That’s neat. What’s a luster? Is it jewelry?”

“Lusters,” Faelyn Yelgeiros interjected between two excited boys who probably should not have been given Spressos after all, “are memory magics. A silvery liquid held within a bubble that contains the knowledge of a skill without the actual memory of acquiring it.”

“Like languages!” Harry yelped delightedly. I covered my mouth to hide the snort of laughter that escaped, he was just so excited. “Before we started our trip we learned lots of languages very fast.”

“It actually does sound similar,” I confirmed to the slightly confused looking adult mer. “It was a silver potion based off memories, but we only have the knowledge of the language skill and not the memories of learning it the hard and slow way.”

“I didn’t realize that upper worlders were using memories in the same way. It’s not really a secret, we just aren’t overly inclined to share it. Every Mer in the world learns with lusters.”

“That’s incredible. If you’re all learning everything as quickly as Christian and I learned our languages your depth of knowledge must be astounding.”

“It’s not as simple as just eating the knowledge, not really. You have to work with it too,” said Nakiasha Perran.

“Take young Ruvyn for instance. He just finished his lesson one test today. I saw your maahm before heading out. She said it went well.” Ruvyn did a classic little kid shrug that could imply any number of generic things regarding school. “It’s important to physically use the knowledge, so Ruvyn did a basket today with provided tools. The lusters for the lesson one test include knowledge of art, art history, cultural and social reasoning behind art, and the knowledge of how to actually physically create a piece of art. He needed to be able to incorporate that information and be creative enough to make something that was his own.”

“That’s the most important part to me,” said Nakiasha Perran as they touched him gently on the arm. “If all you do is keep up the knowledge that you have instead of taking it and creating more, then the whole of civilization falls.”

As they were nodding sagely to each other, the children had gotten bored and wandered back over to the colorful wiggling pets. It was amazing that this little mer could get through to Harry so quickly. Perhaps it had been coming; during our trip I had tried to encourage him to interact more with the children we met. It was heartening and I hoped to encourage it even further, a merboy would be far outside the influence of Albus Dumbledore and the politics of Britain.

“Daah! Can Christian Fischer come to the house?”

The look on his daah’s face convinced me that it was probably faster than usual for Ruvyn to make friends too. He looked curiously over at me for an answer.

“I wouldn’t want to be an imposition. We should definitely make sure the kids can stay in contact though. I think Christian would love that.”

“It’s no imposition. But perhaps not before Celebration, there will still be interesting things going on for the rest of the month but it calms down considerably after then."

"YES!" cheered the young mer as he clapped Harry on the back. "You can eat at our place. Daah's food is the best. And you can meet my siblings, they haven’t breached yet but I go talk to them in the noricerie all the time."

As they grinned at each other, I couldn’t help but think of that famous line.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Chapter 19: Meraviglia

Chapter Text

19 February 1985

"IT'S CELEBRATION DAY!"

"Yes it is, but we shouldn't wake anyone who isn't up yet."

"Right," Harry whispered, "I'm just so excited. We get to go do all the best stuff today."

"True, true."

Carnival was either going to be one long nightmare or it would be a fantastic day that we would both remember forever. Harry and I were both prone to anxiety, and if I couldn't keep mine under control it would be much more difficult to help him through his own. We were going to enjoy the fun, and child friendly, parts of Carnevale di Venezia. The morning and afternoon would be spent enjoying parades of characters, a puppet show, and making our own masks.

We needed to take several potions with us, for the sake of our disguises. In order to not negatively interact with our Safety Nets, or Loo Ba, we had used a potion to temporarily dye our hair blonde. Taking the corresponding potion would return our hair to normal. Before we returned to the resort in Erdra, we would take the temporary blonde hair potion again. If we didn't change it while we were out, then we would show up as blondes in all our pictures while wearing the Fabulousa charms. With the special strap on the camera linked to the charm, our true appearance would show up in the photos whether that was blonde or not.

In the evening, after a nice long nap to recover, we had plans to enjoy the festivities surrounding the Celebration in Edra. There was to be a great parade, tasty foods, music, and what the brochure had described as underwater fireworks displays. Harry's new friend had given us the "best spot ever" to watch the display from and we were anticipating meeting up with him later.

The resort was incredibly all inclusive when it came to the Celebration. When we made reservations I had picked colorful outfits for us to wear during our Carnival outing around Venice, booked reservations for a variety of tours for our week long stay, and ensured a spot with a Murano glass maker for a glass blowing class that was aimed at families. We also purchased spots for the daily fairy, which would take us from Erdra to the magical community in Venice proper and back.

"It's beautiful," Harry said when we reached the daily fairy.

The daily fairy was a small submarine shaped boat, enclosing it's passengers for the brief ride to their equivalent of Diagon Alley called Meraviglia. While they could have used some magical variation of a gondola, the resources and the prides of the two peoples seem to have demanded something much more extravagant.

There was a pearlescent glimmer across most of the boat and attached to the sides were rippling iridescent wings that shimmered in the waters. A shining sparkle of magic endeavored to convey the ethereal presence of a fairy. It was a very beautiful vessel indeed and I thought for a moment that I would be too spoiled by it that once we got to the gondolas they would not be nearly so wondrous.

Meraviglia was a quaint little shopping district, reminding me more of Hogsmeade than of Diagon Alley, boasting a humble collection of only ten shops. With so many magical districts available nearby, it was no surprise that it paled in comparison to the bustling commerce centers like Erdra and those further on the mainland. It simply couldn't compete as a shopping district, but it was a beautiful sort of causeway between the areas and rather touristy. A short stroll through Meraviglia led us to a seemingly ordinary bare wall, which, with a bit of magic, would allow us out onto the main walkway near St Mark's Square.

Harry and I ventured away from the wall and pulled out our Fabulousa charms. We made sure to activate them before taking our potions to restore our natural hair color from beneath the red locks bestowed upon us by the charms. Once our hair was sorted, we found a different discrete spot to change into our festive attire, which we layered over our everyday muggle clothing.

Harry donned his velvety patchwork jester over his everyday clothes. It had patchworked trousers and a coat finished with golden braids. He looked very much the Arlecchino in rusty reds, teals, and golden yellow diamond patches. The white woolen cloth cap fit over his Weasley red hair and the black leather belt held one of our space expanding purses. We were off to get our masks first thing, but he fit right in from his soft white cap down to his black velvet shoes.

As for me, I chose what I thought was a simple dress, but as I put on the layers of costume, I realized even simple outfits were quite elaborate in the late 18th century. The pink shot silk taffeta gave my Robe à la Polonaise a subtle iridescence, while the organza ruffle on the petticoat and the trim added some body to the dress. After tying on my split rump and pocket, I stepped into the petticoat and tied it as well. I tucked in the white neckerchief around the top of the stays, filling the neckline of the gown. Then I slipped into the Robe à la Polonaise itself, a tight fitted jacket with a sweeping skirt in the back, complete with enchanted pins to keep it all in place. A small light blue bust bow that matched the blue of my shoes, a pair of soft white gloves, and a matching hat with a feather were the finishing touches to my outfit.

I was happy that the enchanted bodkin and pins for the front panels worked so well, I had never used such a thing. With the bodkin, a large blunt needle, the stays tied themselves. The pins that went into the jacket panels were traditionally just stabbed right into the stays, but these magical ones would ensure everything stayed in place without the risk stabbing myself. Much like my hairbrush and other tools, it did not require me to have active magic to use the enchanted object.

After getting all togged up, we stepped out onto the lively square ready to fully immerse ourselves in the wonder of Carnevale di Venezia.

Piazza San Marco, the most popular square in Venice and the heart of the city, was already bustling with a lively parade of players in masquerade. All around us the vibrant and luxurious costumes and masks glittered on display. There were flashes of light as cameras took pictures of the beautiful players. Harry and I stopped to watch for a while before we went on to the mask making class.

The relief I felt in the crowded square was profound. The tightening of my muscles, the clenching of my jaw, everything relaxed. This was a crowd that I knew how to deal with, sounds and sights that were familiar to me, and I felt immeasurably better. As I took to analyzing things around us in a more conscious way, I began to feel even better.

"Look at all the beautiful costumes," a young woman to our left loudly exclaimed.

She was American, approximately nineteen years of age. Without the heels she would be five foot three inches, almost ten stone. Here with three close friends and five acquaintances. Attracted to the twenty-two year old male, five foot ten, about twelve stone six pound. He's not interested and has repeatedly told her that, based on his body language.

"Te fasso véder mi, che ora che xe," a woman in a beautiful gold brocade whispered in annoyance to the masked plague doctor next to her. He had just used the beak of his mask to do something lewd. While they were both covered in an impressive amount of fabric and masks, I could tell they were both Venetian by their harsh whispers. Standard Italian is Tuscan Italian, though the Venetian Italian made significant impacts on many languages. They were both in their early twenties, no older than twenty three, the woman worked in an ice cream- no, a gelato shop. Her young man built boats, though probably not the gondolas as that would not account for the stains that have permanently adhered to his rough hands.

The Piazza, or Square, was surrounded by higher buildings that were now tourist destinations. Many with roof, or even tower, views of the square and city. People were bustling in and out of the buildings, passing by windows on higher levels, and leaning over railings on the rooftops. There were several auspicious vantage points for anyone wanting to make a covert attack or cause mass chaos. Security was nearly nonexistent, but then some of myself was used to much higher levels of security everywhere. Magic was not needed for the terrorism in my future. I counted four bobbies, or pula as they are sometimes called here. Two in uniform and two in plainclothes. Each had at least one pistol, probably a baretta, and additional rounds in the fitted pockets of their clothing.

It was like sinking in for a long hot bubble bath. I was so at ease, nearing giddy, with these thousand little assessments of our situation and surroundings that it made me wonder if it was more than just the sound of the song we experienced in Erdra. Was it the water pressing in at all sides? Was it the understanding that all of those people were magical and would have higher cause for a scene if Harry was recognized?

Had I remembered to write Clinkscale about the need for those therapy sessions?

No, I hadn't.

"Auntie Theodora? Could I use the camera to take pictures? Pretty please?"

"Of course, Frankie. Here it is. Just take care to have it strapped onto you wrist."

The camera was in my pocket which had my own extended purse inside of it. I felt no jolting panic as Harry moved away and shyly asked other costumed people if he could take pictures in his near perfect Italian.

A careful scan of the area showed that while somethings had changed while I was getting the camera for Harry, it remained much the same as before. Some players left, some families joined the crowds. New people leaned over edges of rooftops and towers, not that I looked directly at them. I remember after my wife and I had finally perfected that potion. There was already something like it, a slightly off color potion to track a lover if you thought they had jilted you. But, oh, the magic we had woven in swirling circles to make it truly wondrous.

The original potion would only last for 24 hours. Just get a few drops on their skin and you could track them with special spectacles that had been dipped in that same potion. We had extended that time to a full lunar cycle. It was unfortunate that the full moon caused the potion to deteriorate, there were so many werewolves that had gone to his side. If we had been able to track them…

And the spectacles? We ensured the potion would be delicate enough to be held by paper maps. All we had to do was splash some on our targets and we could follow them until the next full moon. That's what I was reminded of in this square. Brushes against passing strangers and faking a cough to dose them with the potion. Small muggle aerosols filled with potion to be spritzed at our targets. Spotting them from high windows and tagging them with darts. I had one asset that worked hard to create a series of watches with a small space expanded compartment to put the darts, marking a potential enemy every time he checked the time.

It might be a different country.

But this was my element.

My smile might have been a bit sharp as I joined Harry in the crowd, taking pictures and enjoying our adventure.

"Almost 30 years we have been here making the masks," said our elderly teacher Georgio. He brushed his hands over his paint splattered apron and glitter caught before falling to the floor, he smiled at the little crowd of families. "My life with a glitter. Every time when I come home, every night, my wife see me. She don't say 'Hi Georgio,' she say 'Go in the shower!'"

We laughed at the joke as he gestured for us to take different places at the crafting tables. The classes are often only for children ten and older, but they make an exception during Carnival for the young ones so that they can make their own masks.

"First this," he continued in English while he pointed to the masks that lined the wall, "this the origin of carnival." Some of the masks were a glossy white, others a lacquered black. There were reds and greens. There was gold and glitter. Closer to our craft tables were plain white masks for us to paint.

"Back then, because Venice is a very rich town, and then does all the merchant of Venice spend the money outside in the carnival of Venice. A huge, magnificent party. And the second important thing in the carnival, everybody is the same when you wear the mask." Georgio picked up one of the harlequin type masks and put it over his soft, smiling face.

"Because if you have a mask, I don't know if you are rich or poor. They don't just say that," he said as he put the mask away. "Upper class, middle class, everyone the same because the disguise by the mask."

"The first mask you find in Venice is that the doctor of the plague," he took down a long beaked mask that had an eerie beauty that was only accentuated by the delicate pastel flowers on the glossy white paint that vined around it. "The doctor of the plague is not a carnival mask. Doctor wear this because they think the plague, it's in the air." His son Niccolo passed out a few other examples of that mask and the others as Georgio spoke of them.

"Pantalone, Colombina, Arlecchino," Georgio said as he pointed to painted characters on the wall behind him. "These are the three most important masks we have- we have from the Commedia dell'arte. Pantalone it's a very old but a very rich mask," he pulled down a half mask. It was another glossy white mask, it's long nose had a sparkle from the glitter patterns painted across it. "This is the mask Pantalone."

"Arlecchino is the servant of Pantalone. Pantalone loves Colombina," Georgio made the Pantalone mask mimic a kiss to the Colombina and the children giggled. The Colombina mask was a delicate mask that swept up around the eyes. There was an intricate silver filigree around the soft pink of the surface, creating a very feminine look.

"Ah, but Colombina loves Arlecchino," Georgio says as he takes the Arlecchino mask and mimics a kiss from Colombina to the harlequin mask. This one was a matte black with a heavy forehead and a large nose, there was something almost feline about it. "A love triangle."

"Now!" he said with a clap of his hands and a wide smile, "We paint."

Harry decided to go with the Arlecchino mask to go with his costume, but he didn't want to paint it a plain black. He wanted to put four diamond patches in a row over the eyes, accentuating the clown affect of the character. I chose a Colombina mask and had taken a few little gems from the pile to add after painting.

"The secret to paint a good Venetian mask is a just one," Georgio said as he supervised us. "Use a small quantity every time, right?"

He took a brush and mask and demonstrated the thin layer we would put on for the first coat. There was a pretty even mix of people painting a white background and those using the black paint.

"Si. You spread the color very, very well on the mask, because we gone to paint the mask two times. With the first layer, we just cover the white, you see?" He showed us all on another mask, this time in the lighter color. We all nodded along, adults helping the children.

"With the second layer, we really paint the mask. The first layer is just a base, very thin layer of paint."

After everyone had finished painting their base coat, we had to wait for it to dry. Because it was so thin it did dry fairly quickly, but we took the time to draw out our main designs on pieces of paper Georgio and Niccolo handed out.

"You might want to make the diamonds that are right over the eyes a little bigger, Frankie. With how they are set into the mask it might look better."

"That sounds good," Harry said as he continued to color.

"Ah, now the second layer, very important now that the first layer is done we really paint. We make it very, very even. If too much paint dries in one spot, this makes it a higher in one spot than the rest of the mask."

After the second coating and drying we could finally get down to the more artistic part of painting our Carnival masks. Harry chose colors that were close to the ones on his jacket and trouser set. Inspired by the soft pink of the Colombina mask Georgio had shown us earlier, I found a soft pink that was glittery. I gently fanned the brush against where the mask would meet the eye, sweeping sparkling lashes across the top and bottom. Then I applied the white and pink heart shaped gem to the corners of the eyes.

A multilayered painted mask to wear with my multilayered costume that I wore with my Fabulousa charm. The secret is thin layers, over and over again. It's the best disguise, but it's easy to get lost in the Carnivale with so many layers covering who you really were.

"With this we do all the decoration," Georgio was saying to one of the people who had finished quickly. It looked like he was applying puff paint from a bottle with a fine needle point. He was so quick with his motions, thirty years of experience obvious in the filigree he made across the mask. "Now we do a really very special thing with the two color of glitter." Moving the mask over a pan he sprinkled a silver glitter and then a teal colored glitter over the still drying mask, the glitter adhering in the perfect places.

"Oh man, that's gonna be so pretty," said the young American who Georgio was helping.

I was smirking at the exclamation when Niccolo came over to our table with his own paint and glitter pan.

"How we doin'? Ready for the glitter?"

"I am, but I'm not sure if I want glitter or just more of the filigree."

As Niccolo helped our table to finish our works of art, the American family was gushing over Georgio and his art.

"I can imagine you meet people from all around the world who come to Venice to make these masks. What is that like, you know, doing this job?"

"I love my job because I can speak with people from all over the world."

"Really? What's the farest away you ever had someone come?" the little girl asked as he put a pink glitter on her mask.

"Well, I remember people from South Africa, or Oman, or Australia, mainly Australia, New Zealand, from Iceland or Russia, United States, like you," he said with a smile to the little girl, "Uh Canada, from everywhere. People from all corners of the world come here into this studio, into this workshop to create masks, and they bring this piece of, you know, memorabilia with them home. It's a nice feeling, knowing I help make that for them."

I couldn't help but think, as I looked down at the masks Harry and I were completing, that it was nice to have a little piece of "memorabilia" to take back to the home we were building. A mask to escape and enjoy ourselves, even if it was hiding.

"Caio!" Harry yelled back towards the shop as others slowly drifted out after the class.

"You get it? We're going to eat and I said Caio!"

I blinked. Oh, I guess he was that age.

Though what stage of development was indicated by little boys telling ridiculous jokes, I wasn't sure. Hopefully, he wouldn't be one of those little boys that found a singular joke so funny they needed to tell it on repeat.

"Yes, I got it. The question is what kind of chow we should get," I said as I gave him a loving pat on his back and pulled him closer.

We had spent enough time in the Square and at our class that it was prudent to look for some place to eat lunch. We were going to take the grand canal towards our next stop in Cannaregio, a puppeteer was having daily shows outside his workshop. I assumed that there would be plenty of places to eat on our way, but it might be best to find something in an area of high traffic nearer to the mask shop. Harry and I followed our noses for a little ways before finding something that was decidedly Italian.

Pizza!

Choosing toppings for pizza in Venice is not remotely the same as it is back home. One gets a single "slice" of pizza, chooses which of the massive variety of toppings to put on it, and then it is put in the oven to cook. The slices are more like squares of bread, thick and heavy – they can hold a lot of toppings. Harry and I chose a bit of everything before going over to pay, which was also different. They didn't charge by the slice, instead they weighed the pizza and charged by the weight. Instead of listing the price by topping, the board showed how much a slice was per 100 grams. Most slices were double that weight at least. It made for a lot of zeros in the price when using the lira, but the currency was significantly devalued and would be for the rest of the time it existed.

Strolling along we nibbled at our pizza while taking in the sights and sounds of Venice during Carnival. We must have looked a funny sight, our costumes and masks at odds with our thick pizza squares.

"MmmHmm," Harry hummed. "This is really good."

"It is. We should try making our own pizzas when we get home."

"We can do that? What about…"

"Don't worry, it's all coming together."

In fact, almost everything back home was completely taken care of by this point. It was all of the extras that he had unexpectedly inherited that were now taking up the time of the masterly Avira Pillai and her team. Updating the charms, enchantments, and protections as well as decorating the interior and exterior of the homes. I had already received word that the Vanishing Cabinets were properly placed in Little Whinging.

One Cabinet in each house to connect to each other. The extra one in the Privet house to connect to a London based property where we could easily disappear. And the extra one in the Wisteria house to connect to a small, but well equipped, yacht waiting in the port of Le Touquet, France. An escape route which, if needed, would allow us to travel like muggles unimpeded until we could reach a safer destination. It would also give us access to the continent by way of France, since our Carriage could not go over water. Both of these Cabinets stretched the safety limit a little, but that just made it all the better in my mind. If the safety limit is a known element then people have a set area to search. Getting caught in the space in between was rare for a working pair, it didn't worry me.

We had finished our slices by the time we reached an open gondola. The gondolier was kind enough to help us take pictures near and in the gondola that showed off our costumes. Then it was a short ride down the grand canal to Cannaregio for the puppet show. It was rather fun to skim across the water in our fancy dress and we were both smiling and content when we reached our stop.

The theater was a well made wooden set with velvet curtains and painted backgrounds. There were people showing off the marionettes that would be used in the upcoming play to small children already seated in the makeshift seats. Off to the side was a black gate declaring L'Isola di Pinocchio in big bold lettering. The workshop didn't normally have ready made items, but like most places in Venice it was making an exception for Carnival. I was hoping to purchase a little Arlecchino doll for Harry as a souvenir, something for him to remember his first time in Venice. More memorabilia, for a child who was always pushed aside and purposefully erased from the place he was forced to call home.

A little bell rang and the puppeteers moved behind the theater. I motioned for Harry to take a seat in the stands, wanting to leave as many seats for the children as possible. Standing in the back with most of the other adults we watched as the marionettes drifted across the stage. The clear Italian from the speakers was easily understandable due to our use of the Euro-Glyph product.

Harry and I had the option of learning the other dialects of Italian, but it seemed more prudent to learn the mainstream Tuscan dialect. They were very distinct dialects. It was almost as difficult as trying to understand a Geordie after growing up Stokie. The language that is learned the world over as Italian was specifically the Tuscan dialect rather than the Venetian we had heard in bits and pieces around the Square earlier. The rest of the world had decided to teach Tuscan Italian instead of any of the other dialects. Blame Dante and the prolific printing presses in Tuscany.

The children were enraptured by the show, but my attention wandered.

Ruvyn Rophyra and their parent had introduced the concept of Lusters to us. The potion that Euro-Glyph had used was much like a mix between a stabilizer and memories that one might pull to view in a pensieve. The Lusters that Faelyn Yelgeiros made and maintained were used to educate the Mer in much the same way that we had learned these new languages. Even the idea that one had to interact and apply the knowledge to truly understand it was similar. After all, how many times did a word not translate because we didn't have an equivalent?

I was beginning to wonder if it was a viable idea to add a Mer based business to ArchAngel. James and Lily had gone out of their way to focus on muggle investments with Silver Hynde, but ArchAngel was being focused more on the magical side of things. In addition to Avira, there was Otto Fick and Ayesha Ayola working on defensive eyewear. I was certain that other things would be added in the future to enrich not only Harry's accounts, but also the magical world. We had wanted to ensure that they were businesses set up by muggleborns and half bloods, but surely if we expanded that to include non human beings we would still be meeting the spirit of our mission.

The marionettes danced along the stage in exaggerated motions. Strings pulling them one way and then the other, forcing them to bow and curtsy, to dance and run. I still felt like I was strung up, moving in directions dictated by someone more powerful. I had to remind myself that this was only the beginning. After all, the strings of a marionette reach up to the puppet master, and there was plenty that could be done with that knowledge and access.

There was a round of applause as the puppets bowed to the audience, children scattering towards the adults with small smiles. The owner of L'Isola di Pinocchio, Roberto Comin, came out from the shadows of his gate and invited the families into the workshop. A small tour on how he makes the dolls and then many things for us to purchase.

"I have an order for a cat, a cat from the fairy tale of Pinocchio," Roberto said in rolling Italian as he opened a mold, letting it lay on his work table in front of him. All the children pressed close to the front with wide eyes. "And so I will be preparing the head of this character. Of course, I will use the mold that I fashioned previously. This is it," he held it up higher so the children could see inside both halves of the mold.

He took a moment to layer something along the inside of it before moving towards a small bag on the table. He pulled out a thick, wet clump and moved it to the table next to the mold of the cat's head. I had to stifle a completely inappropriate giggle, this man had no idea what the inside of a cat's head could be like. I had been listening to kneazles for a very long time and it was a wonderful blessing to have some portion of magic when so much was out of my reach, but their personalities and daily thoughts were often too ridiculous to ever be relayed to others who were so curious about such things. I often made up nonsense so as to not relate the odd truths that the darlings would whisper to me. It was one of the reasons that I took training them so seriously, they were less prone to such things once they had an acceptable level of training. If Harry kept his parselmouth abilities, I would have to help him train snakes as they would likely be much the same.

"With this cellulose paste, I will try to prepare the head." The puppet maker worked the paste like it was dough before he spoke again. "I will press this paste into the mold, and after about a day, I won't be able to remove it because it will dry. The same goes for the legs and arms or similar molds." The paste was worked into every crevice as he forced it down into the mold, no detail would be missed in the final product. When the cat head was completed Roberto moved it to the side and picked up a tray with molds for the legs and arms, his hands white from the plaster, he held it high for the children to see.

"As for the body, in this case, it is made of pine wood. The bodies of the puppets start from a simple wooden block like this one," Roberto picked up block that did not resemble at all a marionette to show it to us. "Which will then be gradually sanded, carved, and eventually finished. This is a fairly finished piece that will lead to a result like this." The last piece he showed us looked much like a very small wooden dress form and I could understand how it would become one of the little marionettes.

"Naturally, the legs, also made of pine wood, with joints, will allow me to have a body like this that can move, any type of movement. Later, the head, made of wood paste, the hands, and the shoes will be added." After cleaning his hands, two completed dolls and a finished head were brought out from a storage area beneath the work table. One was a full marionette woman with a painted face, her arms and legs moving at the joints as he positioned her on the table for display.

"The puppet, after dressed, will be ready and will look like this. Here we have an 18th century lady who is already decorated with paint, her head, and also her legs. It will be given to my sister, who has a puppet collection for her clothing line. Later, I will put them on display."

"We also have the opportunity to see a devil," Roberto pointed towards the second marionette he had taken out. It was painted with a red mask and had brown curling horns, the simple tunic it wore had red paint on it and likely was protecting the body while being painted. "It's always made with the same technique." Finally he lifted the finished head from the table.

"This is an 18th century lady with a finished hairstyle. The makeup we exaggerate in the style of Venetians. Her dress will be taken from the styles of the Carnival-like parties to the Goldoni comedies. Very beautiful. Decadent." He put the dolls and the lady's head away under the table once more.

"Now," he said with a clap of his hands, "let's make these puppets move!"

A small boy marionette was brought out to the walkway, it wasn't dressed but it was painted. His face held an expression of open mouthed wonder. Eyes wide and brows high, Roberto had him look around at the audience while it walked towards us.

"This character, whom we haven't dressed yet, is our friend Peter Pan!"

"Greetings from Peter Pan," Roberto said as the marionette waved at us. Most of us did the very human thing and said hello back to Peter Pan. This caused many giggles.

"Yes, yes, but anyway, I'm cold. I'll get dressed now. Maybe I'll put on some thermal underwear."

This caused even further giggles, even amongst the adults. Roberto caused Peter Pan to fly around the little aisle he had been using as a walkway. I was truly, honestly amazed that the movement was so easily interpreted by my mind as flying. The doll was naked, it didn't even have any hair on it's painted head. If I didn't already believe in fairies, I think this might have convinced me.

"I'm going to take a short break at my place on the wall because I feel a little chilly. Goodbye. Goodbye."

Then Peter Pan flew away, we all clapped and many said goodbye to him.

After spending some time in the shop, Harry and I left with our bags a bit fuller and our wallets a little emptier. We headed back down to St Mark's, taking another gondola, and stood in the square for a few more pictures. I purposefully moved us closer to the columns, one topped with a winged lion and the other with St Theodore. During most of the year the ghosts of Venice would gather around the columns, but it seemed that there were simply too many people for there to be any ghosts around. No ghost likes having a living walk through them, and it's just as dreadful for the living. They would be out and about once the crowds died back.

We slipped around a corner and stored away our costumes before walking a little further along. I explained to Harry that it is better to move in stages. Change clothes here, change hair there. Take off layers a little at a time. Don't spend to much time in one space when you are trying to change your disguise. We took our blonde hair potion and canceled the red that the Fabulousa charms were creating for us before walking back towards the square. We were doubling back through the crowds, another thing I pointed out to Harry. When someone is pursuing you, they often expect you to keep going forward. If your disguise is good enough, however, then you can simply double back and cause them further confusion.

We walked through Meraviglia as a blonde woman with a blond grandson, our muggle clothes not calling any attention to us. On the daily fairy we didn't speak of anything we had seen or would see later. Instead the graceful ride was spent in a contented quiet, Harry leaned into me with a hum and closed his eyes for the short time it took to return to Erdra. A nap was in order. That had always been the plan, to take a nap before heading out to do Mer activities for Celebration Night, but Harry definitely got a head start on that in the daily fairy.

The first thing we looked for as we swam out of the resort in our Loo Ba was food. We were famished after our long day and our long nap. The more interesting parts of the Great Celebration would be happening later tonight. A parade before a display of music and then the fireworks we had heard so much about. But at that moment we were too famished to think beyond our stomachs.

As we got closer to the crowds in the market, I could feel my muscles tighten with completely unwarranted anxiety. I needed to ease into the feel and sound of Erdra's overcrowded, singing market. With that in mind, I steered Harry back to Neremyn Beigeiros where I knew it would be calmer and we could find delicious Mer food. When we arrived it was with a sense of relief, the crowds could wait until after we had something to eat.

Looking behind the counter it seemed that Faraine Balharice was not working by himself. A slim mer with colorful patterns down their arms was helping next to them. There was a short wait, during which Harry and I tried to make a decision on what to eat. If ever there was a need for the caffeinated Spresso, it would be tonight. We wanted to stay awake long enough for the fireworks finale.

"Loo, Morro Dedra! Welcome to our shop," the slim mer greeted. "What can I serve for you?"

"Loo Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer! Welcome back. How was your fun trip yesterday with Ruvyn Rophyra?"

"It was so fun Faraine Balharice! We went and saw the nugen and there were so many colors. They had this one that was flat and the size of my whole face, but it was red."

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at this display of energetic and age appropriate oversharing. Harry was definitely becoming more and more comfortable speaking to people. He didn't worry as much about having something negative happen as a result of being outspoken and that was a wonderful thing. I was hopeful that I could keep that up for him long enough that these changes in him would be permanent.

"That's good, that's good. This is one of my partners. Siora Krisydark, these are new friends of Ruvyn Rophyra. They are called Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer."

"Loo Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer, Faraine was telling me how the little Ruvyn had made good friends with an upper worlder."

"He's such a sweet kid," I said with a smile. "I was having difficulties handling the crowds and he recommended this place for a meal and a little quiet. Something we are doing again today. It seems like there are an impossible number of beings out there, even more than yesterday."

"Oh yes, the crowds always get bigger on Celebration Night. It will be packed with mer and upper worlders alike. Some only come for the big things that happen tonight. Were you going to the parade?"

"It sounded like it would be fun, especially for Christian. Ruvyn Rophyra told us all about the best place for the later displays, but is there a particular spot that would be best for viewing the parade?"

As Siora Krisydark and I chatted about the best places for the parade, Harry was working with Faraine Balharice to pick out a large assortment of foods for us. I nodded to any questioning look he sent me, finding new foods to eat was always appealing to me. When would we have another opportunity to dine on Mer food? Best to take advantage of it when we have it available in such abundance.

By the time Harry and I swam over to a little corner table, I had a good idea of where to scout out the best spots for the parade and Harry had ordered armfuls of food for us to try. It wasn't until we were seated and poking at the various gelatin foods that I realized how monumental it was for Harry to pick out so much food. The little boy who couldn't manage an ice cream flavor just a few weeks ago had picked out, between mains and sides, nearly twenty different dishes for our evening meal. I was so glad that I had responded appropriately when he had been choosing them, I would have hated to inadvertently set back his emotional growth when it came to this by responding negatively.

In addition to a couple different types of the "sandwich of the sea" and a treasure trove of multicolored gems in a range of flavors, there seemed to be an awful lot of food on sticks. I had overheard Harry and Faraine Balharice discussing how they were basically fish fingers, some were made of fish and some were made of the meat from bivalves.

Merpeople grow a truly massive number of bivalves and have been pearl farming for many generations. From what Ruvyn Rophyra's daah said, the pearls have always been a part of their runic magics. The traditional way to create the pearls was to make a long thin string of byssus and on it attach a small seed made up of ground bivalve shell. Clams, mussels, and oysters had been one of their main food sources for centuries. Even the shells were used as a kind of scrub, their equivalent of bathing, and to go into their SEAment. It was a self-sustaining cycle of food, general use, and magic.

"Food on sticks is the best kind of food."

"Oh," I laughed, "is that a firm decision?"

"Yes," Harry said in a very serious tone as he dipped his food on a stick into a little pot of seasoning. It was a vibrant purple with equally shockingly pink flecks through it. The Mer version of a spicy mustard, it was mostly made up of crushed barnacles and wakame.

"When we get back home, you and I will have to find the best food on a stick. Or maybe make our own."

"That is the best idea ever."

Bellies full, we eventually made our way back out into the crowds of the Agorin. The parade would take a long and circular route around the main market so people had packed themselves into tight groups along its edge.

Siora Krisydark had suggested that most upper worlders only really think of such things in a very one dimensional way, they all crowd together near to the sea floor. To really think like a Mer, one had to see the waters in a three dimensional way. It was rude to stay in one place while hovering over someone in most cases, but it wasn't rude to swim along above them as long as your tail wouldn't hit them while swimming. There was a spot along the parade that was a big shop with concave designs in its walls. If we could find an empty space there it would be the best place to watch the true start of Celebration Night.

It was not difficult to tell when the parade started. The songs of the beings in the Agorin became a near silent murmur before suddenly roaring to life louder than it had been before. I backed into the small niche Harry and I floated in, my back hit the wall. Then through the many different songs came a single tandem drum reverberating through the whole of Erdra.

Thum-Thum-Thum

Prrum-Prrum

Thum-Thum-Thum

Prrum-Prrum

A chorus of beautiful, almost angelic, voices came next. Singing a song of seas.

How beautiful the waters seemed to me in that moment as Harry and I swayed with the honeyed melody.

Thum-Thum-Thum

Prrum-Prrum

A shaking sound, like maracas, was added to the mix as the music turned to a faster measure. The song of sirens weaving through the waters as the parade got ever closer to where we rested in sweet repose, waiting to see the Mer of the Mediterranean in all their glory.

A bright spot of yellow caught my attention first, but other colors followed. Pinks and reds, blues and purples. I knew that the mer used seaweed for their clothing, but looking at the things they wore now I had a difficult time reconciling that knowledge. They appeared to be covered in a multitude of gem colored feathers. Great wings of intricate design sprouting from the backs of lithe mer, moving with the current as they danced in elaborate patterns. Beads and pearls that shone with magic in vibrant swirling colors were decorating their hair and skin. And their skin! They were kaleidoscopes of colors and motifs.

It was all so beautiful and moving. I thought perhaps I would explode from the feeling of it all. The magic and wonder of it. The irresistible movement of it.

Thum-Thum-Thum

Prrum-Prrum

As the parade moved further along the route, the song receded and affected me less and less. After a long and bewitching time the parade ended at the same point that it had begun. Fireworks blasted up high, their long tails of brilliant silver stars bringing focus back to those in the Agorin.

I was flush and breathing in slow shallow gasps. Flashes of dark skin, soft lips, and heat shooting across my memories. My hands shook while I fixed my hair more firmly in its tie. This had been an incredible experience, but it was perhaps not one that was suitable for children. Sirens indeed, no wonder so many people drowned over them.

"Over here!" On a small and gentle hill, sloping above crops of seaweed, were dotted several families of mer. Among their number was the kid that had invited us to watch the Celebration's firework display. I had spent the swim from the main part of the city to this older, greyer section recovering from the exhilaration of the parade. Harry had been completely unbothered by the magic and commented only on the bright colors of the costumes. Which made me feel slightly better about taking him to see it. As we got closer to his new friend, I gave Harry a gentle nudge to remind him to say thank you for such an opportunity.

"Hi Ruvyn Rophyra! Thanks for inviting us."

There were no other upper worlders to be found in the area. They were likely in designated points closer to the stage where music was being played to follow along with the light show. But closer didn't always mean better, it was usually wise to follow the advice of locals on such things.

"Loo, I'm Ingrid Weber and this is my grandson Christian Fischer."

"Loo, Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer! It's very nice to meet you finally. Ruvyn and Faelyn have barely stopped talking about you both. I'm Ruvyn Rophyra's maah Amrynn Qijeon."

The little ones were already chattering away excitedly. Harry was sharing his experience from the parade earlier and Ruvyn Rophyra kept interjecting with little bits of knowledge. Who knew the drums were just inflated seaweed? And that the same things were used to ferment many of the mer food we had tried already?

"I promise I didn't speak of you so overly much Ingrid Weber. My loomek here is just exaggerating. I was interested to hear about an upper worlder using similar techniques to the lusters."

Amrynn Qijeon and Faelyn Yelgeiros skillfully guided us to where they had set up the equivalent of a picnic on their portion of the hill. While the boys played for a time, we got to know each other better. I very much wanted to know if it was possible for upper worlders to use lusters in the same way that the merpeople were doing. The leaps and bounds we could advance with such a product would be wonderful.

"It wouldn't be too difficult, especially if you already have something similar already set up."

"That's true," Amrynn Qijeon agreed, "you have pensieves and you can already use wands to move memories between them. This potion that they offered for languages is just a natural progression of that, we've just been doing this longer."

"Much longer."

By the time the city lights dimmed and the opening flare shot out over Erdra, I had secured a tour to the largest luster and runic vessel shop in the entire city. It had to wait a few days for us to fit it into the schedule, but I was certain that it would be worth doing. I was already going to include the information about luster in the next letter to Clinkscale, hopefully we could find a way to work with Euro-Glyph to expand their offerings beyond languages. I set those thoughts aside for the night when the music started.

From the depths of the darkened sea came a hauntingly beautiful tune. As the music grew louder a great cloud of grey smoke formed into a small mountain.

No!

A volcano.

Spraying out of the top of the smoke like an eruption was a red and orange fountain of sparks. They bounced down the smoky ridges of the volcano before whizzing out in Catherine wheels and ricocheting off anything they encountered.

A slow whistling sound heralded a long, arctic white figure with curved horns of dazzling blue and eyes so black that the blazing flare of white that made up their pupil seemed to burn through everything it saw. The dragon’s long serpentine body swam in time to the music as it wrapped itself around the volcano before opening its mouth for an almighty ROAR!

Great jets of shimmering light in every imaginable color burst forth from its mouth, momentarily blinding the audience as the music crescendoed. When we could see again the mountain and its dragon were gone, vanished in the blinding light, in their place was a forest of tall green trees growing steadily ever higher. Their leaves unfolding in a hastened spring, before long flowers bloomed along their green branches. A sweet smell of blossoms drifted along the currents through the whole of the city, the music seeming to encourage the growth of this magical forest so that their petaled branches could be seen far from the city center.

The trees quivered and slowly, as though in a gentle breeze, the petals began to fall. Lazily drifting like snow through all of Edra, the glowing petals had the palest suggestion of pink and seemed to be seeking out the crowds. There were small, soft bursts of light and sound as they shattered into stardust upon the astonished audience. The perfume of the flowers becoming heavier just before they vanished. When the last petal had gone, so too had the forest.

For a moment, all was dark and quiet.

Then, with a sharp high-pitched careening sound a rocket exploded across the sea. The concussive force of the boom caused ripples in the water. Light trails from the fireworks sparked along the ripples, magnifying them and creating large shapes of different colors.

More and more rockets blasted upwards before exploding out before the upturned faces of the entranced audience. Strings of light, glittering, followed the rippling paths created by the reverberating force of them.

Thrown in amongst these light trailing thunderclaps were a sprinkling of backarappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-fountains, and goblin-barkers. No music played along with these impressive displays, and yet they seemed to make a sparkling, crackling, thrumming melody all their own. The gasps and amazed awws creating a chorus of wonder to the symphony of shattered light.

The last shimmering fountain hung for a moment longer, an amethyst tassel against a curtain made from whirling pinwheels of emerald. In that small instance, my heart stuttered and stopped. Sound faded.

It was years ago, but I could still remember.

Remember the happy days. The happy times.

Books, films, they always make a character angry or sad all of the time when it comes to things like war, death, trauma. But that's not the truth of it. There are moments of extreme anger or sadness, of guilt or shame, but there are also lulls between them. Moments of kindness, of relief, of holding on to what is dear to you and being thankful to have it.

They will say we never smiled. That all we had were tears and tension.

But I remembered Weymouth.

The way our skin became sticky with hot summer sweat, an ice cream with even its flake melting into the strawberry topping, and the candy floss that was passed between us. The laughter of small children on the fairgrounds. The smell of salty sea air as we made our way to a soft place to sit and wait for the sun to set. The sweetness of her smile as she pointed to shapes in the clouds.

A whistling snap that drew the attention of the crowd. The single flare burning brightly across the sky. There was a small crackling pop as the red shimmering ring lit across the soft white shape of the cloud. Burning it.

And then the sunset.

"You can't be telling me that the sound is better than the actual sight of a firework."

I laughed softly into her hair, breathing in the perfume of her, before answering. "It's a very visceral part of my childhood. The lights are nice, but if they didn't have the crackling sound to go along with them? It just wouldn't be right."

We were on a mini break in Weymouth, trying to relax while the war was escalating in the shadows. The work we were doing was important, but if we stressed too much we wouldn't be of use to anyone. It was nice to not have to pretend for a little while. Or rather, it was nice to be ourselves and pretend the attacks and disappearances weren't happening. Just like so many in our world were sadly doing every day. The spy cloak and dagger were safely out of sight in this bubble of a holiday.

The smell of the sea drifted in along the breeze, meeting us on our hilltop picnic. The day had been spent wandering through the fairgrounds and looking over sand sculptures. It wasn't yet dark enough for the fireworks to start; we were just enjoying a tea of fish and chips while we waited for the late summer sun to finally set.

"Look at that one," she said as she pointed upwards with a soggy chip. "It looks like a white butterfly."

"hhMm, transformative change."

"You always know everything about clouds."

"You know how my mother was, nephomancy was her favorite way to divine. She used to have us out there, laying in the grass, picking out clouds for her to See from."

"Your sisters never picked it up, right?"

"No," I sighed, "the only one who really had that much talent was Al. Goodness knows how he's using it now. Not like they accept that as evidence or anything."

As I laid further back into our blanket, my arm sticking slightly to hers in the heat, I watched the butterfly in the darkening sky. A whistling snap drew the attention of the crowd. The single flare burning brightly across the sky. There was a small crackling pop as the red shimmering ring lit across the butterfly.

Burning it as the sun set.

I sat alone in the Resort Bar hours after the celebrations had ended. A smoking red drink in a martini like glass in one hand. No one approached me. I was just a blonde with a drink and a faraway look that did not belong in their happy celebrations. I had thought that Carnival was either going to be a hugely negative or positive day for the both of us. For me, I think it was both. That's the problem with grief, with missing one that you loved so much. It hurt to be reminded of how wonderful things were, even as you were happy to have seen a part of them - to have been reminded of them in the dark burning absence of them. It was a beautiful pain.

When I returned to our room, Harry was deeply asleep. His moon on one side, casting a glow over his soft face, and Thumper, the winged horse, snoring quietly on the other. As I watched him sleep I realized it was a beautiful pain to heal as well. Every step in this journey, only two months in, would be another step towards healing. Another step to a better future.

Chapter 20: A Pry-Mer

Chapter Text

21 February 1985

“… and then we wandered around the water's edge with our gelato. I had a peach and pistachio and Gran had a blueberry and tiramisu. Those are flavors that aren't supposed to go together but they did. And then, this morning, we went to see how the gondolas are made. And learned that the fórcola is different for each gondolier, that's what the rower of the gondola is called. They change it based on how tall the gondolier is because of a rule that says that the gondolier's arm is not allowed go over his chin. And then we had cakes at VizioVirtù. And then we took a nap before we came over here for dinner!”

By the time Harry finished describing our adventures since the Celebration Night picnic, I was blinking rapidly, trying to process the change in him. Everyone smiled and nodded along, all of them adults except for little Ruvyn Rophyra. Such a winding, verbose tale was typical for a child Harry’s age. Yet until this dinner, even on our own, he had never spoken so much in a single sitting. It had only been two months, with even less time actually spent together, yet the progress from the hurt and neglected boy I knew was astounding. While the adults took turns asking Harry about his favorite parts, I took an inventory of myself.

I was also different from two months ago. I was acknowledging my pain and the situation that I was in, not ignoring it. I was rebuilding my life, without forgetting what had happened in my past. I couldn’t just take care of Harry, I knew that I needed to take care of myself too. We didn’t exist in a vacuum, there are always other factors - things that affect me would affect how well I could take care of him. He needed to come first, but if I wasn’t safe and healthy I wouldn’t be able to help him like I should.

That’s just what happens when you have kids, their needs come first. Sometimes it feels like your whole life belongs to them. Though, with Harry that might be a little more literal - what with the whole Voldemort and Dumbledore problem. Being there for a child is good, but neglecting yourself isn't sustainable, especially with such a lifetime commitment. Balance is important. That means making sure that I wouldn’t fall to the wayside, that my needs would still be met while I took care of everyone else. Kids are kids forever, no matter how old they get. They just need their grownups in different ways as they grow. It’s not healthy to forget about taking care of yourself.

A sudden flash of a flight attendant going over the rules for how to put on oxygen masks flashed through my mind. Always put on your own mask first, then help the child.

“… I thought that the part about how macroalgae is grown was the best part of the Mer Museum yesterday. Even though we got gelato later and that was good too. But Gran really thought the Rings were the best part.”

Everyone rather suddenly turned to face me and I laughed a little, ten pairs of eyes on me across the cozy underwater living space. Our lazy day yesterday had included a few hours exploring the Mer Museum, especially it’s famed Science and Art of Mer. I’m not sure what I expected from the exhibit, but I definitely wasn’t expecting a Stargate.

“Yes, it really was my favorite part,” I demurred.

The Mer Museum housed exhibits from mer societies all over the world, not just the Mediterranean. The Science and Art of Mer was advertised everywhere and I had looked forward to a lazy hour or two at a museum before returning to the surface and tasting some authentic gelato. And then I was confronted with a large ring that had a spinning inner ring with symbols on it. According to the information the museum provided, the triangular chevron at the top would click into place on one of the symbols before the inner ring spun again to another symbol and then the chevron clicked on that, and so on until the proper sequence was dialed into the device. Like it was a freaking Stargate. Indeed.

“I thought the Ring System was very near the one we use, it’s called a Floo System. Multiple points of entry and exit, needing a pass code to get to where you want to go. Though we don’t use the floo to send our mail, like you do with the Glimmers I read about in the exhibit. We use animals to carry them. Or we use a point to point system, a small box that when closed transfers the mail to another box but only to that one other box. We also have a small and rarely used artefact that can do something similar with beings, just point to point.”

“Your Floo System, it uses fire does it not?” asked Dain Gilxalim, the politically minded partner that Nakiasha Perran had mentioned to me when we met at his stall. “Some sort of stone encasem*nt and fire? How does one input the sequence so that the enchanted fire knows where to go?”

“Well,” I said rather hesitantly, “We use an activator, just called floo powder, that is a sand like substance. This allows us to enchant the flame and then we speak the destination to the enchanted flame itself. There’s no need for physical input. Though, I think your method is better. There are a number of cases of people misspeaking and ending up nowhere near where they were trying to get to, causes all sorts of problems. I do wonder how you manage any overload. If too many people are trying to get to one of our more popular destinations at once, the system shunts us over to the next nearest floo.”

“I can answer that actually,” Dain Gilxalim said with a gleam in his eye.

“Oh, here it comes.” Saleh Lialamin and Nakiasha Perran were more obvious in their humor over their partner’s enthusiasm, but the other adults—Tassarion Elawraek, Siora Krisydark, and Faraine Balharice of the café called Neremyn Beigeiros, and Ruvyn Rophyra’s parents, Amrynn Qijeon and Faelyn Yelgeiros—were all smirking at him too.

“Everyone needs a hobby,” he said indignantly. “Don’t listen to them, I know what I’m talking about with this. When I first started out with the guild, I was a lowly worker and my life basically revolved around the Rings. It was the late ‘50s, by your calendar, and the upper worlder policies were interfering with our ability to travel through the canal. I can —”

“— Picture it like it was yesterday,” finished the rest of the adults.

Dain Gilxalim looked rather put out at their amusem*nt. But neither Harry or I had been regaled with his stories from thirty years ago and were fresh ears for him to talk off. “There was a war between the various upper worlders. The Suez Canal is very important for the transportation of goods and when the Egyptian government changed they moved to nationalize the Canal and raise money for the Aswan High Dam.”

“We went there!” shouted Harry as he floated closer. “They picked up a temple mountain without magic and moved it so it wouldn’t be underwater.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” murmured Tassarion Elawraek. “It must be such a strange thing to have whole buildings move so that the water doesn’t claim them.”

“It’s not just about moving temples. The dam moved the water and gave them greater leverage with how it was used,” Saleh Lialamin remarked with a pointed look. “If they have the water, then they can control who gets it and who does not. How much can be used for crops, or even keep people from planting by denying them water. That’s in addition to the Canal becoming part of their government instead of just a business, meaning the government could block certain trade.”

Dain Gilxalim clasped his hands together dramatically, “My loomek, you do listen to me!” Saleh Lialamin waved him off and he continued. “Because so many governments were upset about this they attempted to invade Egypt and seize the Suez Canal. But it was a disaster for everyone. The upper world governments stopped the movement on the Suez for both the upper worlders and for the Mer. The Chief at the time, Nyana Virpeiros, was wary of such a conflict happening again. The Mer had become dependent on the canal and how the upper worlders had used them. So the Chief gathered an elite group of masters in every field to find a new way to travel. Though the Canal has not often been closed to the Mer, even when they close it to other upper worlders, the Ring System that was invented has fundamentally changed the society we live in today.”

Amrynn Qijeon and Faelyn Yelgeiros quietly excused themselves to gather up the food that had been settling. Because so much of the food is created into jelly like masses or things like the morriel, many of them required a resting or fermenting time instead of the cooking time that we were familiar with in the upper world. Somehow they wrangled Ruvyn Rophyra and Harry into helping them and the two slowly swam in with various dishes.

“That’s amazing. I wonder if we have become too comfortable, too dependent, on what we already have and are not reaching as far as we should. It shouldn’t take something tragic or disastrous to get ourselves out of this slump. I’m not sure this is true, but it was passed down to me that the invention of floo powder was because of the witch burnings. So that they could escape if they had a bit of the powder in their pockets. And those point to point artefacts I mentioned were crafted during our last war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Death Eaters that fought for him would close off the floo access and so another quick way out needed to be devised. I wonder if we could somehow combine your use of the physical input to the point to point artefact and have it work like its own little web.”

“You are touring the luster shop tomorrow with Amrynn Qijeon and Faelyn Yelgeiros, yes? I could bring by a friend of mine. They know all those tiny detailed particulars.”

“As though he only knows the vague particulars,” sung an amused Nakiasha Perran.

“It sounds like you liked the museum, it was a rather intense undertaking,” said Siora Krisydark. “There was quite a furore when we started putting it together. Mer have never had such a thing, it was an idea that we took completely from the upper worlders. Have you gone to the upper worlder museums near by? How does it compare? I’ve never asked an upper worlder before.”

Ruvyn Rophyra and Harry slowly swam between Siora Krisydark and Faraine Balharice with a large shallow bowl filled with what appeared to be glistening purple spaghetti.

“I love museums. I have gone to quite a few museums both back home in Britain and across the continent. The Mer Museum is incredibly well done compared to those. We were supposed to visit the Peggy Guggenheim museum today after our little tour that included the squero, but such is travel with a kid. Christian was too excited to see everyone tonight to be able to go through a modern art collection.” He had actually been experiencing such deep social anxiety about his first time at a friend’s house that he nearly had a panic attack. “Instead we took our time eating cicchetti from this small osterie, Al Bottegon. It was very crowded. Lots of old men holding small plastic cups of wine, tourists with cameras, that sort of thing, but it smelled of good food.”

Behind the counter at the osteria, taking orders, there was a tall, balding man who was happily conversing in rapid-fire Venetian with another tall, balding man when we had arrived. Off to the side a woman about the same age was putting together more cicchetti, little bite sized morsels on toasted bread with toothpicks to hold everything together.

There was so much to choose from, cicchetti in all its glorious variations… the classic creamed cod, cod alla cappuccina, tuna and leek, ricotta sauce with walnuts and currants, smoked herring and balsamic vinegar, octopus and green sauce, pistachio paste, and sautéed mushrooms with cheese. Cicchetti are done simply, but can be done oh-so well. All with a good glass of wine and a lovely view at Al Bottegon.

When I had ordered in Italian, it earned me lovely smiles from all around. I suppose we did look very much like tourists. Well spoken tourists got smiles, tourists who asked for bigger cups to drink their ombra with got grouchy grumbles and stares.

Harry and I walked towards the Grand Canal after we paid for our food, occasionally stopping and to take a bite of our cicchetti or a sip of our drinks. I had a lovely white that went very well with the cicchetti I nibbled. Harry had chosen L’Aranciata Amara, a slightly bitter orange fizzy drink. The food and the walk seemed to calm him, but I didn’t think a museum filled with delicate art would be the best way to keep him calm.

I decided that our best bet was to just spend the time we had set aside for the museum to walk the streets of Venice. Before the squero, our guide had gone through a brief tour of Venice, so there was not much more in depth sightseeing I thought we could do on our own. I set our end goal as VizioVirtù, which I had hoped to visit at some point.

“I’m always interested in what tastes upper worlders are using now,” Siora Krisydark said. “We were very lucky to get on at the beginning of the swell and have been riding it since then.”

“Ya-ya, the caramel has been a big hit with both Mer and tourists,” agreed Faraine Balharice. “New flavors that can work for both are limited, but when we find one it creates quite the tide.”

“Speaking of great flavors,” interrupted Faelyn Yelgeiros, “We have many flavorful dishes available for our guests tonight.”

Laid out on the round tables that drifted through the room like flattened colorful bubbles made of coral was a veritable feast. Coming from a country of mostly bland beige, the amount of color to the food was absurd.

The dish that Harry had helped Ruvyn Rophyra bring to the tables earlier was a translucent noodle with a shockingly purple sauce. A dish of layered pink and white with magenta in between and a creamy white sauce on each personally portioned rectangle. On another of the tables they had white plates with little meat cubes, a light silvery blue with green flecks of seasoning, next to a cerulean dip and a deep dark green dip. Stuffed dark green leaves were artfully arranged, their bright yellow innards impishly poking out from the tucks and seems. The final plate had small balls, cubes, and strips of meat all on small skewers.

That was the plate I knew Harry would enjoy most, despite the delightful presentation of so many interesting looking foods. It was food on a stick and he was the champion of all food on sticks.

“We welcome you to our home,” Amrynn Qijeon, Faelyn Yelgeiros, and Ruvyn Rophyra chorused with a small hand motion.

With a quick look to Harry, we responded in the traditional greeting, “We are honored to be so welcomed.”

There was noisy laughing song and chatter as everyone gathered plates and bowls to help themselves before they settled back in with their food. Harry and Ruvyn Rophyra on one side of the beige stone settee with Faraine Balharice rounding it off at the other end, and me gently cushioned in the middle. Perhaps he did it on purpose, sitting next to me, but I was very happy to have my very own food interpreter as we munched away.

“The kids, they are eating Bryfina. That’s basically any meat with paste on a skewer. This the silver blue meat is Erdi, very tender and lean. Before fermenting it is a brilliant pale sapphire with silver colored fat. But once we do a short ferment and grind it together into spheres with the seasoning, it is a light blue. I imagine the sky is this color, yes? This we call Daekas. And you have the fermented Spirulina and Wakame paste to dip into if you like it.”

“This is absolutely delicious. It does rather look like the sky, though with the bit of paste it looks like sky covered in marmite. It’s a bit peppery, and surprisingly earthy for something made with ingredients in the sea.”

“If you liked those, you must try the Trisnala next. The tourists at the stall love them,” chimed in Tassarion Elawraek as she gestured towards the stuffed leaves on my plate. “They compare them to all sorts of food they have at home. That’s perhaps the most interesting part of being in the food industry here at the center of things. Everyone is always telling us how the food we serve is just like what they have at home but with this difference or that twist.”

“It is fun sometimes to hear that our food is not so different from the food served elsewhere, but I enjoy hearing about new things more. It’s more interesting,” remarked Siora Krisydark several of the guests nodding along with them.

“I do enjoy finding new food as I travel,” I said. “It’s been wonderful that young Christian has been so open to trying so many different foods. I suppose in the upper world there are a lot of similarities in food. Everyone all over the world found a way to make and then to fry dough, for instance. Or that everyone all over the world found a way to make an alcoholic beverage.”

“Ah, yes, that reminds me.” Faelyn Yelgeiros swam a little into the kitchen, “I forgot to have them bring out the rest of the pods and crystals.”

They had offered me a lovely pod when we had first arrived. It was a bubble made of thin gelatin, smaller than an apricot and larger than a cherry, the pod had syrupy liquid inside of it. The amount of liquid the pod held was probably around that of a shot glass. I had enjoyed the Carzana, an amber colored pod filled with a dense syrup that tasted slightly like a grapefruit wine seasoned with salted daisies.

“Oh, this is great. I had forgotten that these were in season,” said Saleh Lialamin. “You should try this one Ingrid Weber it is called Sarphine and Christian Fischer should try this one Lixiss. The Sarphine has as an ingredient the Lixiss, which does not have alcoholic fermentation to it. They are my favorite warm season pods.”

Harry and I each took our pods and mimed a toast to each other before putting the bubble into our mouths whole. The gelatin burst on my tongue and a rush of fruity citrus and fresh mint flavors with sweet syrups delighted my taste buds.

“It tastes like lemonade!”

“I would swear that this was a Pimm’s Cup. Or,” I laughed, “or perhaps it just tastes like summer.”

A happy and boisterous chatter filled the room, children and adults immersed in a lilting song. The food was just as spectacular as it looked. The Nuvian were spicy noodles which Harry loved, but weren’t too spicy for me. The Orinelis was something like a lasagna made of thick slices of Quirel with ground meats in between and a thick creamy sauce on top. When the food was eaten the kids wandered off to another part of the beige domed home and the adults continued over new pods.

“No, no, this one is Ralomenor. It is very refreshing, no alcoholic fermentation.”

“Thank you,” I said to Amrynn Qijeon. I was never much interested in alcohol. I needed to be in control so often for much of my life. There were always hazards around me as a child and young adult that no one else needed to deal with because they had magic. A wave of a wand making everything better. And then I went and became a damn spy, things did not become safer. Even a little buzz could put me in more danger, so why risk it?

“…and our kid, Rhistel Iliris not Chalsarda Grejyre—”

“Sorry, was it Chalsarda Grejyre that we met at the fireworks?”

“Ya-ya, Chalsarda Grejyre is our lai-nah. They work at one of the bigger pearl farms, doing the stringings,” answered a proud Nakiasha Perran for their partner. “It’s Rhistel Iliris, our dai-nah, that works at these new clothing shops that Saleh is so obsessed with.”

Saleh Lialamin let out a small grumbling noise at the word “obsessed” as though they would disagree with such nonsense.

“We must not have something to directly translate some of those words,” I interjected before a new passionate discussion about how clothing should be made started up. “The words lai-nah and dai-nah don’t translate for us. I’ve found that happens a lot actually, especially if there is a great deal of feeling behind the word. As though magic knows that I don’t feel that way about a word that I already understand and so it leaves it be. I thought it was understandable for proper names and even names of things like food, but it does come up at the oddest of times.”

“I had been told that the upper worlders are almost never trinity. That they believe it somehow wrong. Perhaps it is wrong for humans, but for mer it is the norm,” Dain Gilxalim replied with a sad look towards Amrynn Qijeon and Faelyn Yelgeiros before turning his attention back towards me. “It is perhaps not spoken enough in any literature that upper worlders have available to them, something we should work to fix. Mer work best in a trinity. When we introduce ourselves it is always Female, No Gender, and then Male. The hmmM uh- the titles that you might hear that won’t translate are important and it would be disrespectful to refer to someone with the wrong one. For instance — Old Female is Baba, No Gender Elder is Maha, and Old Male is Jaja. These would be people older than the adults here,” he said gesturing around the room at the quieted company.

“Likewise there is maahm, laah, and daah for parents of kids. Only the kids would call us that, so it does not apply so much to your situation except to know that they exist. Then for the parents to speak of their kids there is maih-nah, lai-nah, and daih-nah. These titles,” he made a face of disapproval at the word that didn’t quite fit with what he was describing, “they are the same no matter the age. I will always be daah for our kids and Chalsarda Grejyre is our lai-nah forever. Just as Rhistel Iliris will always be our dai-nah, even when he himself is referred to as daah.”

“Is that true,” whispered a curious Ruvyn Rophyra. “Do the upper worlders only have dyads and not trinities?”

“Oh, Ruvyn,” Amrynn Qijeon sighed. None of the adults had seen the kids floating back towards the company.

Faelyn Yelgeiros moved to usher the kid back out of the main living room for a private chat. “Please, help yourself to more Ralomenor. Amrynn and I will bring out the cakes shortly.”

As the little family swam away, the quiet atmosphere became chocked in a wave of melancholy.

“It’s not your fault,” Tassarion Elawraek sung to me. “They put off having kids for a long time after they lost their partner. They did not want to carry on as if nothing had happened. It was a tragic accident and the grief consumed them.”

Little noises of sad agreement from all of the adults left me in an awkward space. I had become so isolated from others, even from my closest friends and family, that I had not had to deal with these in a long time. These moments where other people grieve for you because you lost what made you whole. Where people were sad or felt impotent and guilty with no way to help. No one ever seems to know what to do with the grieving spouse, not even the grieving spouse.

It was much easier during the height of the war. Burying myself in work, ignoring the pain. After a while no one in a war with such large causalities says the hated words, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Humans are such physical creatures, we fell back on those innate instincts. Hand the grieving food. A squeeze on the shoulder. A pat on the hand. Direct eye contact and a nod. The loss was understood and common ground among the wounded, words were unwelcome.

Everyone dies eventually. Those friends who I do not mourn, will eventually mourn me.

We were collectively startled out of our sorrowful thoughts by the lone child in the room.

“I don’t have any parents,” Harry said in an almost chipper voice. “They died when I was real little and now I only have Gran. And Gran lost someone in the war too. People who died aren’t gone forever because we are here to remember them. Least that’s what Gran told me.”

“That is very wise Christian Fischer,” sang Amrynn Qijeon as she floated into the room carrying a try full of what looked like pancakes. “We should always try to remember those that passed beyond before us.”

Faelyn Yelgeiros and Ruvyn Rophyra came in carrying more trays and the mood was lifted as everyone helped themselves to these savory cakes and new drinks.

“These look like they’ve been cooked,” I said in the lightening mood. “How in the world do you achieve such a thing?”

“It’s a runic based electrolysis,” answered Siora Krisydark. “The Ziezer came out about hmmM uh perhaps two decades ago? It is a stone dish with a lid and has a runic pattern both inside and out. You trap the ingredients inside and shake it for a few seconds to activate the runes and a burst of magical electric like energy cooks them together while pushing out the water. Let’s see, there’s all three kinds here-”

“You should try the Zeqeorind Cake first,” Dain Gilxalim said cutting them off and receiving a mock glare. “Everyone always discounts it in the face of the Zummeolon and the Zucheaquat cakes, but it is the best one to try all the dips with by my accounting.”

“No matter how many times you say it Dain, it will still be wrong. You should just stop while you’re ahead,” came Siora Krisydark’s rebuttal.

“They do this all the time,” assured Amrynn Qijeon quietly. “The Zummeolon Cake is vegetables and bivalve meats with the sweet Pakha and Sylvar pastes cooked into the cake. The Zucheaquat Cake,” she paused for a moment to swim out of the way of Siora Krisydark who wanted to get more up close and personal with Dain Gilxalim after an insult he had murmured while she spoke. “The Zucheaquat Cake,” she started again with amusem*nt clear in her tone, “has vegetables and octopus meats cooked in with the spicy Arakas paste.”

“The reason why Dian is so adamant about the Zeqeorind Cake — nearly as adment as Saleh Lialamin is about what constitutes proper clothing— is because with the Zeqeorind you can add the flavors to it as a topping,” added Nakiasha Perran.

“The dips on this tray here can be added to the Zeqeorind,” Faelyn Yelgeiros said as he passed over a tray while watching Siora Krisydark and Dain Gilxalim continue their bickering.

The friendly banter died down as we spread various meaty, creamy, or spicy sauces over the thin round Zeqeorind. It was sort of like a very thin pancake omelet. And it was absolutely delicious.

“We will have to see about setting you up with a glimmer Ingrid Webber,” said Amrynn Qijeon as she nodded over towards our two boys. They were very methodically going through each of the cakes and dips as though it were some experiment of great import. “It would be nice for our Ruvyn to have a new friend, I know it is sometimes difficult for him.”

“I was thinking the same thing, but I’m not sure how it would work. It’s not as though we have ready access to the sea. Do the glimmers even work in the upper world?”

“In order to reach upper worlders we wish to trade with, we set up a system with the Goblins as part of our treaty. Ruvyn would simply send his glimmer to a sort of collection facility,” said Dain Gilxalim. “From there it would travel into the upper world through goblin methods and be dispersed from their embassies. Then Christian Fischer just sends his back the same way.”

“Embassies?” I asked. “What embassies?”

“Their banks of course, though I suppose they aren’t exactly embassies. But they support the main diplomatic mission of a country, the Goblin Nation, while located in the capital city of the host country. In your case, I believe it is in London somewhere. Ours, of course, is located with in the resort here in Erdra. Traditionally speaking, embassies manage broad diplomatic, economic, and political matters. They also represent the sending country's government at the highest level, I believe that would be part of the Goblin Nation Liaison office in your British Ministry of Magic.”

“I suppose I just never thought of it as an embassy,” I said, my forehead furrowing in thought. “It was always just the Goblin Nation. As though their country simply existed within our own, instead of it being separate.”

“That is a legitimate way to look at it,” responded Dain Gilxalim. “Goblins have always existed within the earth, it is only through our own outreach works that the Mer have become friends with our neighbors. It was through the shared economic projects that made us partners and then allies.”

“But with upper worlders like us,” I countered, “the Goblin Nation has always just been there. Geography might make us neighbors, but that doesn’t really make us friends. There has been a lot of conflict there. Hopefully, there won’t be again.”

“Let’s not get to far into politics Dain,” said Tassarion Elawraek. “All Ingrid Weber wanted to know was how to work the glimmers.”

Dain Gilxalim gave her a look before conceding and getting a few more cakes from the trays.

“It might be confusing,” she continued, “the golden bivalve shell and the message are both called glimmer. The glimmer message is created by pulling a message from the being with the use of a runic bead. Then you tap the message into the shell, close it, and then send it out. It is played by opening the shell and tapping it with a runic bead. It does not need to be underwater to play properly.”

The glimmers seemed almost like the videos from my past, but instead of being easily accessible or streamable from digital platforms at physical access points, they had to be physically transported in a device that contained them. It was, perhaps, an odd combination of email and physical mail. There also appeared to be no option for instantaneous communication. While the Muggle world was just beginning to celebrate cordless telephones in the home at this point, they at least had instant communication for several decades. Even the Floo System allowed for magical calls, and it had been in use for centuries with no real advancements.

“It would be no problem for me to get several glimmer sets for both Ingrid Weber and Christian Fischer. I can get a few for tomorrow when I meet you at the Luster shop and we can work through the process,” offered Dain Gilxalim as he passed me an iridescent lat sized crystal. “Then we can get an official set for each of you. This is the precursor to Spresso, it’s called Umeberos. Give it a try, it’s a traditional end of meal crystal.”

“Ya-ya, let me get the Olofina for the kids. They will like the jelly it is very sweet,” added Faraine Balharice as he drifted away to give the kids something new to focus their intense energies on.

“Will you be able to find the Luster shop without a guide,” Nakiasha Perran asked. “If you are going early enough we could meet at the resort and I could escort you to the shop.”

“Actually,” I said appreciatively, “that would be lovely. I find that the change in noise once we leave the resort tends to disorient me for a while before I can adapt to it. Having a friendly guide would be very much appreciated. Thank you, Nakiasha Perran.”

I took a nibble of my Umeberos and reveled in the tart, lemony tang that was mellowed by the sweet hints of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. Looking over towards the kids, I smiled as Harry and Ruvyn Rophyra spoke of the wonders of chocolate and how it compared to their treat of Olofina. Harry had healed so much in such a brief time; it gave me hope that he would be less affected by his tragic start in life. It even gave me hope that I could heal from my own tragedies.

It is much easier to carry a sleepy 4 year old boy home when we were both underwater and wearing Loo Ba around our waists. It was a stark contrast to guiding a pale and cold child through the snow and ice. Though, once we reached the interior of the resort, it eventually became a bit more challenging without anything to help our buoyancy.

There was no need for stories as the child held his miniature winged horse. There was no need for soothing in the light of his little moon. There would be no nightmares in this deep and peaceful sleep. Once he was able to finish groggily putting on his soft pyjamas and snuggled under deep fluffy blankets, he was asleep before I could even whisper a final goodnight.

I was not so lucky as to fall into a quick and dreamless sleep. I was feeling warm and content, more capable and in my element than I had felt for a some time. Which meant that it was time to try and tackle the nonsense the goblins had been sending me.

Yesterday, after our time in the Mer Museum, we had stopped for lunch in a small restaurant in Meraviglia and gone through our mail. I did not want to mix the magics of the post box with whatever was in the resort, not without an understanding of how the magic might interact with such a connection, though it meant only accessing things when we had a moment in the upper world.

What do Goblins write about to children?

The differences in ceremonial blades, apparently. While I had my own letter from Master Clinkscale to read over our lunch, Harry had been happily devouring details and histories for weaponry from the Goblin Nation. He was enthralled by the diagrams that pointed out the differences. The plan was for it to be a slow day, a recovery after a full day of exploration and a night of celebration, as such we could linger over our late lunch in the upper world to check our correspondence.

The letters that Clinkscale wrote fell into two distinct categories. Purely Professional or Fairly Familial. There really was no in between. Harry was lucky that he didn’t yet receive the professional correspondence from the Manager of the Potter Estates. It was exceedingly dry. Wading through it, during our lunch, I had felt my eyes glaze over slightly as my mind wandered back over our earlier adventures.

After the fireworks display, there had been food and games on the hill with the mer Harry’s new friend introduced us to — it seemed they were all related somehow. Lawn games were, in fact, possible underwater if one were creative enough. It was nice to see Harry happy and playing with others. Meanwhile, I spent my time with the mer bottling up and suppressing like the pro I was so that I could make decent conversation and emotionally collapse later. I had spent too much time awake being introspective after tucking Harry in for the night, my memories haunting me more that night than they had since I started working on potions again. I was glad that Harry and I had taken a long nap before the Celebration parade, I’m not sure either of us would have made it through the long night otherwise.

When we woke at last it was nearly noon, but we weren’t worried as we had a fairly lazy day planned ahead of us. The first thing on our list, after some nibbles and tea at the resort’s restaurant, was the Mer Museum. The museum housed exhibits from mer societies all over the world, not just the Mediterranean. The Science and Art of Mer was being advertised everywhere and I was looking forward to a couple lazy hours at a museum before returning to the surface.

The Mer Museum certainly delivered on many levels.

One of the things that Clinkscale, Avira, and I had been working on with the safehouses was the inclusion of the specially made Vanishing Cabinets for quick escapes. My letters with the dear Avira had taken a slight pause while Harry and I were in Erdra, but we had been planning out how to best utilize the Vanishing Cabinets and the Carriage in ways that would confuse anyone trying to follow us.

Using the Princely Carriage still often required us to go outside where we could be seen, but the Vanishing Cabinets didn’t have that issue. When I had originally been informed of just how many of these safehouses there were, my thoughts had been on creating chains of the Cabinets to jump through before getting into the Carriage for an entirely different destination.

It had been Avira who so smartly pointed out that if we created organized webs instead we would be able to more safely maneuver than if we had straight lines alone. Organizing multiple Vanishing Cabinets in each safehouse, meaning that each safehouse would have three exits and create a web of four houses. The idea that we could then take the Carriage between say the homes in a Western Europe web to the Northern Europe web.

It was a much more complicated plan for travel than I had, but I thought it would better utilize all of the homes. Her plan also ensured we could get over water and borders, both muggle and magical, without anyone realizing it.

After having experienced the Mer Museum, learning of their Ring System and discussing things with our new friends, I wondered if we could make it even better. Take the idea of a web of Vanishing Cabinets even further. The Cabinets were still one to one connections, sort of like multiple mini hubs. If there was a way to connect them all together using the runic capabilities that were a part of the Ring System, we would be able to bypass a lot of the security worries while simultaneously increasing our own ease of access to safe places. Then we would only need one Vanishing Cabinet in each house, as it would connect to every Cabinet, and have the Carriage as a backup instead of as a way to go between.

I moved over to the writing desk in my room and pulled out the various letters I had looked over during yesterday’s casual luncheon. The many feet of parchment that Clinkscale had sent me, the smaller bundle from the goblins charged with the Black accounts, and an even smaller one from Avira.

I had wanted to wait until later to write back, though perhaps I was avoiding what the biggest chunk of Clinkscale’s letter was pushing. Even as I pulled out parchment of my own to draft a letter, I would rather think of the calm day that Harry and I had spent together.

After finishing up at the small café, our letters read and put away, we made our way out of the magical shopping district. Harry and I had turned on our Fabulousa charms and taken the potion to cancel the blonde effects on our hair before we had entered, we were redheads again. The Grand Canal at Piazza San Marco was less crowded than it had been on Pancake Tuesday, but there were still a fair amount of tourists ambling around in the late afternoon. As we took in the sights, I wanted to make sure to get as many pictures as possible. I was still fighting both my invisibility and the invisibility that had been forced onto Harry.

I took out the camera and encouraged Harry to run towards the famous pigeons in the square. He was laughing all the while, so happy as he burned off some energy after a lazy start to our day. It was when we spent some time trying to find all of the winged lions in the square that I finally saw a ghost flickering into view around the edges of the Cathedral. The ghosts would avoid the main area for a while longer, but we were scheduled for a ghost tour later in our visit.

After we had plenty of pictures in the square, we went down the Grand Canal, towards the Rialto Bridge. For almost eight hundred years it was the only bridge in the whole city. The market here had been providing the daily supplies for the population for almost a thousand years. Split into two areas there was a covered part for the sale of seafood called the Pescheria, and an open air part for the sales of fruits and vegetables.

At dawn the barges come down the Grand Canal and deliver the goods for the food market just as they had for centuries. Though it was barely evening when we arrived, most of the fresh foods had been picked over and the bigger stalls had already closed. I had considered coming back very early in the morning to get the best pick. The enhanced preservation charms that Avira had put on our kitchen meant that we could purchase good Venetian seafood and it would be fresh for years.

Harry and I had quietly talked about how those worked. I felt it was important to give him continual reminders for certain things like his food and clothing, his basic needs. He had improved so much since the time that he couldn’t even pick out an ice cream flavor.

When we were swimming through the displays of algae at the Mer Museum, nibbling on the samples of foods made in them, we spoke softly of the way that we would live when we returned home. Here, the mer wove these plants into clothing. But Harry would have good clothes from both the magical and the muggle side of the divide. We might need to be careful with our shopping as money got tight, but he would never have to wear ugly oversized clothes like he had been forced to do with the Dursleys.

Here, they made foods from plants they grew. When we were home, Harry was planning out his own garden that would exist in his suitcase. The suitcase would stay in his room in the Wisteria house since it would not have space expansion magics applied to it. I made sure Harry understood that we did not need the garden to have enough food, he would always have enough food. No one was ever going to keep food from him ever again.

Besides, Avira had made a space expansion greenhouse for edible plants as well as one for potions ingredients for me. The plants that were not magical could use magical light to grow, but the ones that were magical required light from the moon, the stars, or the sun itself. There had been a pitiful amount of research done on the subject of magical grow lights for plants, Avira and I were planning to do several experiments on it. But through my gardens we would have plenty of fruits and vegetables to eat.

However, if we wanted, we could buy groceries from specialty markets like this and keep them under preservation charms. They would stay fresh and available to us for as long as we kept them there. Allowing us as much food as we could handle, if not more. It was no wonder that the Weasleys were poor in material goods, but always had more than enough food for all of them.

In a series of narrow streets between the Rialto Bridge and Saint Mark’s Square is La Merci, a famous shopping area. In the distant past, this area was used to sell valuable goods that had been traded with the East. In modern times, the area is packed with stores and stalls selling just about everything, including lines from the biggest names in Italian and international fashion. Harry and I were already planning to visit Murano to learn how to blow glass, so the pretty souvenirs of Murano glass didn’t tempt us. There were other little things, though, that did.

I carefully lifted my new album off the desk to give myself more room to write. The texture was rich and warm, a subtle aroma of aged leather, the supple cover moved with the pages. I was planning on having charms added to give it more pages and more protection. The small golden clasp would need to be changed in order to accommodate the charms, but I still thought the purchase worthwhile.

We both added a few new souvenirs and toys to our extended bags before we had headed out to our last stop of the day. Taking the vaporetto line, Harry and I made our way to the Zattere waterfront. Even in the cool of the February evening, there were still people relaxing at the café tables under the striped awning. The historic Gelateria Nico on the Zattere waterfront, was repeatedly mentioned as having the best gelato and atmosphere in all of Venice.

They had interesting flavors of gelato, such as melon or kiwi, and a beautiful view of Giudecca across the waters of the canal. The guide book suggested we try Gianduiotto, a chocolate hazelnut creation of Northern Italy that somehow became this shop’s specialty. But Harry and I wanted to experience a La Passeggiata, the traditional evening promenade through the beautiful city. The evening stroll in Venice is often along the waters and we were at the perfect place to enjoy it.

For a little less than an hour, Harry and I wandered around the water’s edge with dripping gelato. My blueberry and tiramisu a contrast to his peach and pistachio walking along the Zattere Fondamenta enjoying the view on the Giudecca canal. Our little spoons, bright colors to match our outrageous gelato. Our happy stroll was punctuated by stops for photos, or just to breathe in the atmosphere.

My first draft response to Clinkscale was clumsy and avoidant. As the ink dried, I tried to find that fiery courage that pushed me to continue on in bad situations even as they got steadily worse. It was the timing of everything that was the most difficult part for this situation.

In amongst the nearly thirty feet of grandiloquent nonsense from Clinkscale was about ten feet of useful information. The introduction, for it was definitely an introduction, was only lightened in its bulky prose by the thanks that Clinkscale had slipped in for the picture we had sent of Harry with pink deshret hair. He had framed the picture and set it up in his home office. He made several important points after that, though significant sifting was required to find them.

The first was that the goblins in charge of the Estates and the Accounts for the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, Shatterpic and Copper Claw, were planning something drastic to keep the estate from collapsing in on itself due to neglect by the family. With the Lord Black neglecting his duties, the heir apparent in prison, and the remaining daughters of the house not being permitted to inherit per the Lord and the previous Head’s decree, the Estates and Accounts were in disarray. There was only so much the goblins could do if they had to continue to follow previous orders. In addition, they were being constantly badgered by Lucius Malfoy who believed his son to be the sole inheritor to the Black fortune.

No one had been able to persuade Lord Black into a meeting, a floo call, or even return a letter. The Goblin Nation was only aware that he was even alive due to the magics of their Archive. As a true Lord, he was linked the moment he had his magics tested for the purpose of officially taking up his title.

Most goblins looked down on involving anyone outside of the family to resolve issues, but Arcturus was the only adult Black left to them. Involving the Ministry of Magic was a stain upon the Clan with very few exceptions. What they were thinking of doing, or rather who they were thinking of involving, was considered taboo even though it was completely legal.

They were only being held back by the understanding that Clinkscale and I had plans. Their idea was actually something that I had considered early on, though they had heavily expanded the idea, it was just not feasible or safe for me to try and approach him by myself. If the goblins were willing to do that, then that was very different.

The problem was the timing. I wanted to make sure that the Dursleys were taken care of before attempting that approach. Whether it was the goblins through their own connections or not, it would still come with some risk. Clinkscale even suggested that the approach might not be necessary if I could get Lord Black to appoint me as his representative to the Goblin Nation, or even to make his representative Harry since he was the heir presumptive. Because I was Harry’s representative already, it would amount to the same thing. Putting me in charge of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, helping the goblins make sure everything ran smoothly. This access was important for the second reason that Clinkscale had outlined.

They had found the horcruxes.

The extremely thorough investigation of all the data they pulled during Harry’s exam was complete. They were able to track lines of health that split off from the leech, it’s past when it had been part of a whole as well as its present condition as a horcrux, which told them that there were further pieces out there. Tracking the other aspects led to the surprise that there was a horcrux of Tom Riddle housed in the Lestrange vault under Gringotts. He wrote “potentially,” but I knew it to be a certainty.

However, it went against the laws of the Nation and of Gringotts to interfere with anything inside a vault. He and Master Healer Erlast had already attempted to gain access by sending a protest to the council. There are rules about leaving living beings inside of vaults past a certain point. Unfortunately, they were denied this easy access as the aspect was most likely to be classed as undead instead of actually living given the information listed on Harry’s tree and in the Archive about being the heir of Slytherin. Tom Riddle is definitely not alive, but he might be undead. Which closed some of the doors that would have helped us, but also kept some worrisome ones closed as well.

With all of the Lestranges held in Azkaban the vault defaulted to the Black family, per a well established family protocol, where it was held in trust by the Lord and Head of House. Clinkscale practically cut all his flowery and verbose language to naught when he pointedly told me that I needed to gain access to the key to that vault. If I could just convince Lord Black to allow us into the vault to remove the horcrux, the Goblin Nation experts could study it and get a better idea of what is going on with the other splits in the health line that were found during Harry’s exam. If I, or Harry, were appointed as his representative we could legally go in to the vault without depending on the mood or politics of the Lord Black.

Most of the knowledge Clinkscale wrote about the horcrux hadn’t been new for me, though I was glad to learn that our team within the Goblin Nation was now aware of them. He hadn’t called them horcruxes, but I had a few books that mentioned it in the new library Harry and I had been collecting during our travels. Shali Adrár had been especially helpful with books about souls and how they could impact magic. With the relief of that part of my deception taken care of, I could simply write to him that I had come across certain books and things I had heard during the war were starting to make a troubling amount of sense. That should be enough to lead them down the rest of the path without it seeming like knowledge I shouldn’t have.

Though, he did caution that the defensive spectacles that were being developed by Otto and Ayesha under the ArchAngel portfolio would only be ready for testing by the time we returned. It would likely be another month after that before I would be able to sit before Lord Black and be protected from legilimency. They already had the tests lined up and ready to be performed once the prototype was complete, if all went well it wouldn’t take too long.

The third point that Master Clinkscale wrote on was that Avira and Master Rayner had determined that the safehouses Lily created were protected from people of significant ill intent. Master Rayner was able to confirm that the protections also included an obscure enchantment to shield the resident from scrying, much like the old houses of purebloods could.

This would have been worrying if Harry had the tracking and enchantments on him that I had initially suspected Dumbledore had bound to him. But the data from Harry’s health screening showed that while there was definitely an enchantment on him, it would merely allow someone to monitor his general health. The enchantment would not give away his location, or that he had no location such as under these protections, nor would it bind him in any way. They were certain that there would be no alarm sounded to Dumbledore should Harry be at those houses, even under such protections.

Avira and I had been writing near constantly to discuss these unexpected homes after she and her team had completed things in Little Whinging. The surprise had caused some significant changes in my plans. I sometimes felt like I shouldn’t bother making plans, not when they were so often upheaved by some new information. She had done such a wonderful job with everything in the suitcase for Harry, he loved everything about it. The way that she made everything so accessible and safe for me was wonderful too.

She was such an interesting and talented individual. It made me feel guilty about the society that we lived in, one that would treat such a spellbinding witch so poorly because of her lineage. The more I got to know her through our letters, the more convinced I became that we had gotten incredibly lucky in finding her and in convincing her to join our ventures.

The last points that he made was that Harry’s lineage came with certain additional responsibilities. The language was just so very proper as he outlined what the goblins from Harry’s other lines were doing. Since Harry was the last of his line for Potter, Slytherin, and Gaunt he had more responsibilities. With him being the heir presumptive to the line of Black, both by blood and by the will of the heir apparent, Harry would need to take up further responsibilities for that House eventually as well. Doing all of this without involving the Ministry, and allowing Dumbledore to put his fingers into it, was causing some consternation.

On the Slytherin side of things, the elderly Quickiron had agreed to allow us to use the empty vaults for our schemes. Harry would simply have to be there for some type of audit. The vaults would be staged for a few different schemes we had in motion for later on. Once the Dursleys were officially taken care of and we could concentrate on the… What did Clinkscale call them? Chizpurfles. Though, I rather liked Shatterpic and Copper Claw's Quartzy Chrysaor insult as well. There letter had been quite a bit more colorful than Clinkscale's and when they were informal, goblins had the best insults. The brief letters, because it would be socially unacceptable for them to be so informal on an update, that I had read from them were very humorous.

I sighed as I drew out a new piece of parchment, my quill inked and ready for battle. It was going to be a long night, but I was more determined than before to face all of this responsibility head on.