Harry Potter and the Deep Dream

By: DarkPhoenixLady

Fandom: harry potter

Summary: On the morning of his 11th birthday Harry finds a letter from his mother that leads him to discover that there is more to the world than most can see or touch, and that his heritage is out of this world. Join him as he discovers new facets of himself, new friends, and a heritage that could bring the world to its knees. xposted to AO3. gender morphing Harry

Status: Completed

Fic type: Books/Harry Potter

Pairings/Main char.: Harry P., Hermione G., Petunia D.

Published: 2020-10-30

Last updated: 2020-11-24

Words count: 109,969

Chapters count: 51

Converted using www.FF2EBOOK.com
Date: 2020-11-29

1. Prologue

I made the prologue as a prompt for hpfanfiction on reddit, but my brain wouldn't let me go after that. So here is my first foray into Harry Potter Fanfiction

Prologue

Letter found on Harry's pillow on his 11th Birthday

Son,

I'm writing this letter 2 months before you're due to be born, and I hope to be able to burn the letter in a couple of years and teach you what you need to know myself, however our family history suggests that may not be possible. You have grown up in, or are about to join, the magical world. As you have just reached the age where your magic stabilises, I need to tell you some things. The information in this letter cannot be shared with anyone else outside our family, and not even your father knows this information though he does know some of it as does every magical through fairy tales. I hope that by the end of the letter you understand why you can't talk about it to anyone that isn't related to my Great Grandfather by blood.

You may have noticed that there are no truly nocturnal magical creatures, even the owls sleep at night. This is because our world is not alone in space, rather it is accompanied by a myriad of other worlds that breach the aether every night during the witching hour. My great grandfather theorised that it was to equalise the magical pressure across the worlds, but what's important about this is that all magicals that are awake are carried along with this flow while their personal magic is active. What does this mean? Magic is active when it's being used, and while we are awake, we are always using magic. Our magic only becomes quiescent once we sleep. I could never tell her, but once I found out about our family, I always envied my sister for her lack of magic, for her ability to go out all night and come home at dawn. The thing is that while you'd think that you could just power through and tough it out for an hour, magic doesn't work like that. Time is not linear, especially when magic is involved; and the further into the dream, our name for what happens, the more magical the worlds become and the less hospitable to our worlds life it becomes. Because of this it's possible to experience a lifetime in the dream, if you can survive that long. Once you spend any amount of time in the Magical world, you start to hear about the odd disappearance. It's always the same, someone disappears from their room at night and is never found again.

Why is all of this important to us? It's because of Great Grandfather. He was what is called a squib, that's someone that's magical, but not magical enough to use a wand. He considered himself to be somewhat of a scientist, and in 1895 he read about an experiment where dogs were prevented from sleeping. On the 23rd June he met your Great Grandmother during the experiment and managed to bring her home. They had 4 children together, your Grandmother Trudy was the youngest and a miracle child born in 1918, Twins Simon & Fredrick were born in 1899, and Susan born in 1903 were her siblings. Simon and Fredrick were both conscripted during the 1st world war and disappeared some time during a sustained bombardment in 1916. They were marked as AWOL, though their companions claimed they just disappeared in front of them during the night, but the doctors said they were just suffering from shellshock. Susan married and had one child at the age of 20 in 1923, but she disappeared from the marriage bed with her baby 8 months after it was born. Your Grandmother married late in life to a doctor she met at the tail end of world war 2. I was born in 1959. My Mother died in childbirth, and your Grandfather remarried and had Tunie. Because of your Great Grandmother, our magic doesn't automatically become quiescent when we sleep, rather we need to feel safe and unthreatened.

As children this isn't a problem as our magic isn't developed enough to be active except under stress, however you are now old enough that you need to learn how to feel your magic and then learn how to coax it into quiescence even when you're stressed. You need to start learning now before you reach adulthood as the changes you'll be going through in the next few years will also change your magic into that of an adult. I've asked your Father to give you my journal, it's blood locked to my line so only you or your children will be able to open it. If for some reason he is unable to give it to you, get a book on Meditation that doesn't use a breathing technique, or a book on Occulumancy and don't move on from calming your mind until you've found your magic. You should then be able to learn how to make your magic quiescent.

From your loving Mother

Lily Potter.

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Sitting in his cupboard Harry finished re-reading the letter for the 3rd time that morning before folding it reverently and putting it with all of his other treasures behind the support for the third step. Needing to make the breakfast for his Relatives had forced him to stop panicking after the first time he struggled through the letter, especially after Uncle Vernon destroyed the letter that came for him and now he's had time to calm down his excitement started to build. He has magic, and so did his Grandparents! There's a magical world out there, and he's going to join it soon! He might disappear at night! That thought brought his thoughts to a grinding halt, as excitement turned to fear in an instant. He might not have the best life, but he didn't want to disappear. Ruthlessly tamping down on his excitement and fear just in case his Aunt picked up on it, he crawled out of the cupboard into the living room where she was enjoying her morning Tea while watching Crime Watch on TV. He couldn't hear Dudley, so he must be out somewhere.

"Aunt Petunia, I've finished the cleaning, may I go to the Library please?" he asked politely when there seemed to be a pause in the program.

"Go on then, be back by 5 as we're cooking for guests tonight." She huffed back.

Grabbing his worn shoes and a ratty backpack he hurried out the house as quietly as he could before she decided that the garden needed weeding today. Taking a circuitous route to the High Street avoiding the park, he made his way to the small library. As he enters he sees the Librarian glare disapprovingly over her glasses, and shrinks away from it. It's not his fault that his Aunt and Uncle will only buy him one set of new clothes every year, and when Dudley inevitably tears them, he has to wear Dudley's castoffs. After searching fruitlessly for ½ an hour he timidly walks up to the Librarian.

"Excuse me, would you be able to help me find a book please?" he asks fully expecting to be told to get out.

The librarian turns her stern gaze to him and replies in a surprisingly kind voice "Of course, what book are you looking for?"

"Erm, I was, err, trying to find a book on meditation, I was told it might help."

The librarians face turns kind as she sees the person rumoured to be the local troublemaker asking for things to help. "Sure, we don't carry much, but what we do have will be over here in the section on Religions." Taking a copy of Mahāyāna Buddhist Meditation: Theory and Practice off the shelf and handing it to him saying "This might be a little hard to read, but it's about Buddhism talks about meditation, if you want to read it over here you can ask me if you get stuck." She led him back to a table near the front desk.

Several hours later he's struggled through half the book, and the Librarian has praised him for his perseverance a few times, even though he had to ask her for help all the time. He also found out what Aether and Quiescent means, although he's not sure what a debunked scientific theory has to do with magic, or what it meant either. He's brought out of his reading by a persistent beeping coming from the Librarian. Looking up he sees her look down at her watch.

"I'm afraid that it's 4:30 so I need to send you home as I need to close the library." She says while fishing a set of keys from somewhere behind the counter. She then picks up his book and puts the library index card in the place that he got to "You can always come back tomorrow and I'll keep the book here for you."

Panicking slightly, Harry grabs his backpack and rushes out of the door, he knows he doesn't have the time to take the long way around, so he chances going through the park rather than run the risk of being denied dinner because he was late.

20 minutes later he gets to the park and he can see that the Dudley gang are monopolising the swings as he expected. Unfortunately, there's no adults around, so he's going to have to skirt past the wood and hope they don't notice him. A couple of nerve-wracking minutes later he's almost at the exit when he hears a shout behind him. Not even pausing to look back he breaks into a sprint and runs for home, the sound of pounding feet and laughter echoing behind him. Just as he is getting to the end of his stamina the house comes into view and the sound of feet fades to nothing. He thinks he hears Dudley say "He's too close, Mum'll kill me if she sees me…" before he gets to far away. Reaching the front door, he pauses for a count of ten before opening the door calmly and walking in.

Once he gets inside he sees his aunt ironing the tablecloth as she looks up at the clock. "Just in time, go and get washed up and then start peeling potatoes, we're cooking for 5. Oh, and I moved all of your stuff into Dudley's toy room. I spoke to Vernon at lunchtime and we decided that you needed to move as you're getting a little big for the cupboard. You'll be eating up there as you've got no good clothes for the guests.". Looking carefully at his aunts face he can't tell if she's angry at him or not so he quietly heads upstairs and gets washed and changed before going down to help with dinner.

Later, after he finished eating he put his plate on the three legged desk that leaned against the wall and sat on his bed thinking about what he'd learned at the Library. It was nice having an adult praising him, odd but nice as not even the teachers at school did that, and the Librarian even said he could go back tomorrow. But he could see that she got annoyed with his questions, so maybe he shouldn't… His thoughts spiralled out of control for an hour before his Uncle shouted "Boy, come down and do the washing up!". Jerking his head backward and hitting it against the wall, he hurried to get downstairs, quickly heading back to get his tray as he took a couple of steps down the stairs. Glancing at his Uncle he saw the slightly reddened cheeks that said he'd had a bit to drink, so he needed to step carefully otherwise he'll get a wallop around the ear for talking back. Using his hand under the tap to stop the water from making a noise as the sink filled even though it was almost too hot, he washed and dried the dishes and ovenware as quickly and quietly as he could. While he was doing the washing a barked laugh made him jump and one of the clean plates jumped off the drying rack heading for the door. Scrambling quickly, he managed to catch the plate before it landed without knocking anything over, and apart from a shout to be quiet nothing came of it.

Once he finished he could hear his Uncle laughing at the TV with that exaggerated laugh he has when he's drinking, so once he finished and all the surfaces were wiped down he headed upstairs as quietly as he could, taking care to avoid the creaky steps, he made his way back to his new room.

Sitting on his bed he tried to start the meditation that he read about earlier in the day, but thoughts of Dudley kicking open the door and beating him up, or Vernon deciding that he needed some discipline kept intruding. Especially when he heard the meaty thwack and the sound of his Aunt crying again when the beer ran out. At that point he sat shivering on the bed thinking of all the things that could happen to stop him from going to sleep and making him disappear at night. The heavy footsteps of his Uncle coming upstairs followed by the toilet flushing twice came and went, and still he couldn't sleep. So, taking his blanket, he crept downstairs and let himself into the cupboard under the stairs and curled up with his back to the wall shivering. Eventually sleep claimed him and the night passed uneventually.

3. Chapter 3

Harry woke with a jolt in the morning to the sound of his Aunt calling his name upstairs. Jerking awake, his leg flew out and kicked loudly against the door to the cupboard. Pulling his leg back quickly he huddled in the corner afraid that the world outside wasn't the world he went to bed with. The soft footsteps of his Aunt came down the stairs, and a moment later the angry face of his Aunt appeared in his doorway. As soon as she saw the absolute fear on his face the angry words that she was about to spit out froze in her throat. Her face softening she crouched down in front of him and said "Harry. Harry, Harry!". Once she had his attention she continued "What's the matter?".

"I don't want to disappear." Giving voice to his fear caused the tears that he'd been holding back to come forth in wracking sobs.

Somewhat at a loss, she held her hand out hovering as if to reach for him. "Why do you think you're going to disappear?"

"I... I… If I don't sl…p I'll di…p…er …nd I …'t wa..t to".

"What do you mean?"

After failing to form another sentence, Harry blindly pulled the letter out from his hiding place, crumpling it slightly, and held it out in a shaking hand towards his Aunt.

Wondering how he managed to get a letter written on parchment, she opened the letter and glanced at it dismissively until she recognised the handwriting. As she recognised the neat handwriting of her sister she collapsed to the floor and quietly read the letter in shaking hands.

"Oh Lily… Oh Lily, why didn't you ever tell me.", tears started falling down her face as she got to the third paragraph, "Why didn't you tell me you stupid cow. I could have helped, we could have meditated together, but you had to ruin it, we could have spent time with Grandpapa together."

Finishing the letter she looked over at Harry who was still crying with great silent wracking sobs, so she reached out her hand and called softly, "Boy, come here. Come on.".

Dejectedly, harry clambered out of the cupboard over to his Aunt. Instead of anything that he was expecting, for the first time that he could recall she pulled him into a hug.

"You stupid boy, I don't want you to disappear either. I care about you, and I've always tried to protect you."

They sat there together for nearly ½ an hour before they heard Vernon stomping to the toilet.

"Come on boy, I'll help you with breakfast today and once they're gone we'll talk."

Turning to look at his Aunt, he gingerly reaches a hand up to touch her eye where the makeup had run revealing the bruise that Vernon left last night. "Does it hurt?"

"A bit, but it wasn't you or Dudley, so that's ok." She replies softly. "Come on, we need to get breakfast made before he comes downstairs.".

Together they made quick work of breakfast and cleaned up the evidence of their tears in the kitchen sink. Aunt Petunia touched up her eyes using the makeup in her bag, and just got it away as Vernon came downstairs, shortly followed by Dudley. Rather than coming straight to the table, Vernon instead went to stand by the front door. As Harry went to sit down at the table he saw his mothers letter by the sofa where his Aunt dropped it when they cried together. Panicking slightly, he grabbed the letter, hurried into the kitchen and chucked it into the towel drawer. Unfortunately, Vernon heard him, and started towards the kitchen "What was that boy, if you're hiding something from me you'll…". Whatever the threat was going to be died stillborn as the postman pushed the post through the letterbox. With an evil grin and a mutter of "No freaks live here, the boy is going to go to Stonewall High and the Freakishness will be beaten out of him." he grabbed the post and took the parchment letter out into the garden before burning it.

With a look of satisfaction he returned to the table and sat down indicating that they could start eating, not that that had stopped Dudley from starting as soon as the food was on the table. As Vernon sat down he jogged the table causing Dudley to spill juice down his jumper. Aunt Petunia immediately began to fawn over him while dabbing the stain with a napkin. "Oh Dudders, are you OK? It's ok you can have more juice. Boy! Get more orange juice for Dudley! You poor thing, let's get that jumper off and into the wash, and get you into a clean one." With a glance at Vernon, who just grunted, Harry quickly took the mostly empty glass into the kitchen and filled a clean one with Orange Juice and came back with the glass and a cloth, which he used to dab up the worst of the spill. As he sat back down Vernon lashed out and cuffed him round the ear, "Next time be more careful not to jog the table."

"Yes Uncle Vernon." Harry replied meekly.

Sitting at the table after he'd finished his cereal he tried to reconcile the Aunt Petunia sitting there fussing over Dudley and Vernon and talking harshly to him with the Aunt Petunia that broke down crying and hugged him earlier. His mind kept coming up with a blank. He was so lost in thought that he received another cuff from Vernon when he didn't get up to clear away the table fast enough.

Hurrying to the kitchen he quickly cleared the table, put the tablecloth in the washing machine, cleaned the table and washed up the dishes and put them away. Once he was done he went up to his room as unobtrusively as he could, and curled up on the bed with his back to the wall. Shortly afterwards Vernon came out of their room with his tie and jacket on, his brief case in one meaty hand and slammed Harrys bedroom door open.

"Now boy, you do everything your Aunt wants you to, or it's back to the cupboard with you. You hear me?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

"Good, and if I hear you've been causing trouble in the neighbourhood again you'll get the belt."

"Yes Uncle Vernon" he replied in a small voice.

With that Vernon left for work and Harry heard the sound of the TV downstairs as BBC breakfast carried upstairs faintly. Dudley was playing on something in the room next door with the volume turned up to Max. All that was irrelevant to Harry as he sat there still trying to come to terms with what happened that morning.

An hour later Dudley screamed in rage, and something hit the wall hard. A moment later the heavy thump of his booted feet tromped down the stairs. "I'm going to meet up with Piers and Dennis, Mum!"

"Ok, don't be out too late!"

Followed by the slam of the front door.

A few minutes later there was a soft knock at his bedroom door before his Aunt pushed it open. He felt her sit down on the bed, and opened his eyes as she pushed a letter into his hands.

"I suppose you want to know what's going on." She said while looking at her hands.

"When I met him… When I met him, he played rugby, boxed, and was charming. Oh, he was so charming.

"I met him when I was doing an evening job as the student bar to cover the cost of the secretarial course, and he flattered me with pretty words and gifts. He was doing his final year of a Degree in Business and Management, and he already had a job lined up with Grunnings after his gap year.

"I was in love, and the world was rosy. The year went by with a whirlwind of dancing, parties and dating and when he graduated he proposed to me. It was beautiful."

Harry uncurled to look at his Aunt as her voice started to break.

"Then we got married and your mother bought us this house as a wedding present. We'd been looking at it during our engagement as they were new builds, Lily saw the brochures and bought it for us.

"That's when it changed. Oh it didn't happen overnight, it started out quite reasonably, 'Oh, don't you think it's a bit far to meet your friends in London?', 'Weren't we having so and so around that night?', 'I need to meet a client on the _ would you mind cooking for us?'. Then he hit me. I was pregnant with Dudley then, and he broke my jaw when I said I was going to see my sister in… why can't I remember where she lived?

"I hated her, did you know that. For the longest time I hated her, I hated her for how much time she spent with Grandpapa, and Grandmere. I hated her for being able to do magic, I hated her for marrying that hansom hunk. But she was still my sister, and she was so beautiful when I went to see her after…

"Then her husband came to see Vernon and something happened and it went back to the way it used to be. It was wonderful, and I dismissed the solicitor, why did I have a solicitor?...

"Dudley was born 3 weeks before you were, he was such a beautiful baby, and Vernon loved him. He looked so proud holding him in his hands.

"Lilly and that wastrel of a Husband came round shortly after you were born, and she was so hap.." Her voice suddenly turns harsh a stuck up as she continues, her face taking on a hateful visage

"Looking down at us plebs, as if marrying that drunkard gave her airs and graces. Sent her right out with a flea in her ear I did."

Harry looks at her oddly as the sudden change in demeanour catches him off guard, and he scoots to the end of the bed away from his Aunt. The sudden movement seems to break whatever turmoil was going on in her head as her face relaxes and tears start to fall again.

"A year passed and Lily… contact… " her voice trails of again before continuing.

"Then on November 1st I opened the door to bring the milk in and you were there in your blanket and a letter saying that…" Her face changes a couple of times, and she seems to be struggling. Carefully, in case she lashes out at him, he reached forward to touch her. At the touch she jumped breaking whatever turmoil was happing inside her.

"It's in the drawer with my tights, under the lining. Be a good boy and go and get it."

Harry looked at her for a long time unsure what to do before she snapped "Well go on." Scarpering in to their bedroom he quickly found the letter, carefully extracted it and brought it back.

"Read it then, you deserve to know." And so he carefully opened the letter and read it.

Mr and Mrs Dursley,

It is with great regret that I must inform you that your sister Lily and her husband James died during an attack on their home on the 31st October. As you are the sole remaining family still alive I have no choice but to leave their son Harry in your care. During the attack the leader of the terrorists was killed signalling the end of the war.

While the means of his death is unknown, I can tell that your sister laid very powerful protections on Harry. I have extended these protections over your home, and for as long as Harry can call it home you will be protected from any wizards that seek to harm you.

Obviously, I understand that an extra mouth to feed is not cheap. To that matter, James and Lily left details for Harrys caregivers to receive a stipend every month. If you would send a letter with your bank details to me at Hogwarts I will arrange to have this money transferred to you.

Condolences

Albus Brian Percival Wilfric Dumbledore

When he finished reading he looked up at his Aunt, "What's a stipend?"

As the words to the question left his mouth he was gobsmacked to see his Aunt collapse in hysterical laughter. Once she recovered a bit she turned to him "A stipend is a small amount of money used to cover someones living expenses. If we'd have been able to get it life might have been easier, but no! The stupid backwards arse world needs to use owls to deliver post. I sent letter after letter with different variations on the name and location, but they all came back unknown address. I even tried going through mum and dads files for the address, but they'd all been destroyed in the… attack… why couldn't I remember that? Why couldn't I remember the attack?...

Shaking her head she continued on as if the last 10 minutes hadn't happened.

"It was all good to start with, I was still breastfeeding Dudders, so an extra mouth wasn't hard to adjust to. But it was when Dudders started teething that money became tight, and Vernon started to change. Oh it was little things to start with, shouting at me to shut you up, or telling me to stop feeding you as he needed his breakfast before going to work. And then he started hitting me and shaking you. That's when I put you in the cupboard, you were all I had left of my sister, and I couldn't let him hurt you so I hid you away.

"It seemed to get better after that, but it got worse if he saw me caring for you, so I learned, oh how I learned. What set him off, how to set him off early, how to keep you hidden, how to keep you quiet."

Quietly Harry asks "Why didn't you leave?"

A bitter laugh escaped her lips, "I tried, oh how I tried. I got to a shelter once on my own, another time with Dudley. A shelter is a place where people that need help can go to live for a while. But whenever I took you with me I forgot what I was doing, and things didn't seem so bad.

"I even called social workers, but every single one was very sympathetic while they were here, but as soon as they got back to the office they wrote glowing reports about the home situation and I gained a reputation for suffering from Hysteria."

She shakes her head and looks at Harry. "And now you know. I've tried to protect you, sent you to do the gardening when he's angry, worked you hard so that you sleep soundly, belittled you so that he doesn't think I'm playing favourites. Even spoiling Dudley, and now the letters are coming and it's going to start again. They won't stop, they'll keep sending letters until we answer them, but we can't answer them."

She then looked at him with an expression that he didn't recognise "Can I hug you?" the shake in her voice was unmistakeable.

Harry watched her for an indeterminable moment before her face dropped and she turned away. Just as she was about to stand up he responded with a small voice "please"

Turning to him she held her arms open with another expression he didn't recognise, and he crawled into her arms and they both cried.

4. Chapter 4

This hug felt like when he wrapped his blanket around himself and curled up in the corner of the cupboard right up against the stairs. But better. He wasn't sure why it was better, but it was. Is this what hugs are supposed to feel like? His Aunts tears dampened his hair, but that was ok. A short time later they both stopped crying, and just took comfort in the presence of each other.

"I'm sorry Harry, but I've got housework that I need to do before Vernon comes home."

While he didn't understand everything yet, he now understood enough to understand the end of that sentence.

"Can I help?" he asked hesitantly 'protect us from his anger' he finished in his mind.

"No boy, not with this. But do you want to make us a sandwich while I do the tea and then go out of the house for the afternoon?"

Turning to look her in the eyes, he saw the naked vulnerability there, and though he didn't know what it meant he recognised the look from the mirror occasionally.

"Sure... I'd like that"

"Before we go, let's put your mums' letter away safe, and you can keep the other one too. Come, I'll show you a trick you can do with your desk."

Going over to the desk to show him how to pull the drawers all the way out.

"I remember putting this together for Dudley after Vernon got too frustrated and stormed off to the pub." A look of fear crosses her face at the memory before she continues "There's a catch in the back of the drawer, right here, that stops it from coming out accidently." She gently takes his hand and guides it to the catch that sat flush with the wood of the drawer, only a slight indent giving away the fact that something was there.

"You need to pull it out with your thumbnail, and then pull the drawer out with your other hand. There's then a small gap at the back where you can keep important things."

Carefully putting both letters in the back, she replaces the drawer and leads him downstairs.

Harry had just set down the plate of sandwiches while his Aunt had a pot of tea when they heard a key in the front door. He was looking at her when it happened, and her face changed immediately to the haughty expression that he recognised. That's when he realised that this face is her mask, even though he didn't understand enough to use that language he recognised that this was how she protected herself. Snatching his hand back from the sandwiches he hunches in on himself and makes himself look small and inoffensive.

A moment later Dudley came in through the front door and called out "Hi Mum".

"Oh Dudleykins, I was just thinking about you and had the boy make sandwiches."

"Great, I'm starved, cool beef and mustard, my favourite."

"Boy! You've done all your chores; I don't want to see you here until 6 when you need to start dinner."

Years of training had Harry grab his backpack and flee out the door before his brain could get back into gear after the sudden change in his Aunt from this morning. Struggling with his thoughts he wandered aimlessly for a while before he remembered that he had that book he could read at the library. Pulling himself from his thoughts he looked around to get his bearings and saw that his feet had carried him into the park. He quickly hurried out of the park just in case Dudley came out and headed to the library.

When he arrived, the Librarian turned her stern gaze to him before pulling out the book and handing it to him. "Good afternoon, I see you came back. You can use the same table as yesterday."

He struggled through three pages before he heard a chair being pulled out on the other side of the table. Looking up, he saw the Librarian looking at him with an inscrutable expression. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing." He bent back to the book.

"I know it's not nothing, as you've taken an hour to read three pages, and yesterday you were reading a lot more than that."

Looking up in shock, he hadn't realised how much time had passed.

"It's my Aunt, she… I shouldn't talk about it… it will just make it worse."

The Librarian gave him a long, searching look before she stood up and headed out to the back. Harry turned back to the book and struggled through another few lines before she came back.

"Listen, I know you don't want to talk about it, but these are for you." She hands him a bundle of pamphlets the top one has ChildLine emblazoned in white on a red background.

"This also came in last week. It's a pre-release copy for review, I sometimes get them because of my degree. I can't let you take it away, but you can read it here." She handed him a loosely bound hardback book with a white cover. Printed on the front was 'A Family That Fights by Sharon Bernstein'

"Maybe you should read that this afternoon rather than struggling with an advanced book that many adults would struggle with. Come back tomorrow and I'll help you with the rest of that book."

Not having a better idea, he opened the new book and started to read.

This book was much easier to read, and he only needed to ask for help a couple of times. It was about half way through the book that it suddenly became hard to read, as he realised that the book was describing a lot of the things that happened at home, at the same time he started reading it with an absolute frenzy.

All too soon the Librarian's alarm went off and he was shuffled out of the Library with the promise that the books would still be there tomorrow, the pamphlets hidden at the bottom of his bag. Rather than heading straight home, he turned into an alleyway between two shops, crouched down behind one of the bins taking care not to get himself dirty and cried. After he'd cried himself out, he made his way home.

As he got close to the house, he could hear the sound of whatever game Dudley was playing through the open window of his room. Sighing he listlessly put his key in the door and entered bracing for whatever his Aunt threw at him.

"About time you got here!" her shrill shriek echoed through the house as he entered.

"Go up and get cleaned up then start peeling potatoes"

Rushing upstairs, he bundled into his room. Before he could close the door, Dudley came out of his room and barged into his.

"Ha, I knew it was you, I don't know where you've been hiding, but you know you're just making it worse if we don't get to play Harry Hunting soon. And now you're in trouble with Mum too." He taps Harrys hand with a meaty hand before going back to his game, pausing at the door to punch one hand into the other.

Pulling himself together, Harry closes the door and grabs the pamphlets from his bag. Pulling the drawer out he goes to put them in when it sees a Mars Bar with a note on it.

Happy Birthday Harry, I'm going to take you shopping tomorrow.

Tears prick his eyes as he reverently puts the Mars Bar back, along with the pamphlets and replaces the drawer. Drying his eyes, he quickly cleans up and heads downstairs to start on dinner. Seeing his Aunt in the kitchen, he gives her a quick hug and mouths "Thank you" before they both start on dinner.

At 6:30 on the dot, the sound of Vernon's car pulling on the driveway floats through the front room window. Harry and Petunia glance at each other, and then both their eyes open in surprise before they go back to cooking. Harry flinches as the front door opens more heavily than normal and Vernon stormed into the house. Leaving his briefcase by the door and throwing his jacket over the banister he marches into the kitchen and opens the fridge. Pulling out a can of beer he looks at it, then puts it back before shoving Harry out of the way and grabbing a bottle of scotch from the cupboard and a glass.

Dinner is a quiet and tense affair, as even Dudley knows not to play up when Vernon's in a mood like this. The silence is suddenly broken by Vernon bursting out with "How dare they. What does Steve have that I don't? I've been there longer, I've got more clients, I bring in more money, and they Promote Steve to Senior Manager over me?" Seeing his Aunt flinch at the outburst he makes a rash decision and sets his features. Once dinner is finished, punctuated with more outbursts from Vernon as the alcohol starts to break down his already tenuous control, Harry starts to clear up from dinner. As he expected his Uncle Slams the table as he's doing the washing up, making him jump in shock, unlike normal he doesn't even try to catch the plates as they fly from the drying rack to the kitchen door. A moment later Vernon storms in and drags him out by his hair and throws him across the back of the sofa. Taking of his belt he folds it in half and starts to beat Harry's arse. "Stupid fucking freak, break our fine china, will you? Do you think we're made of money? "Vernon continues to beat on him devolving into incoherent shouting as Petunia and Dudley stand by as still as possible just in case, he turns his attention to them. Eventually Vernon runs out of steam, the belt missed occasionally and got Harry across the back and legs, and the buckle slipped and caught him once leaving a gouge out of his back. But it was over, and Harry was sent to his room. Shortly afterwards the sound of the TV turned on, followed by the sound of Vernon snoring in the chair. Once Vernon was asleep, Harry heard Dudley come upstairs quietly and go to bed. An hour later, his back was still burning when he heard his Aunt coaxing Vernon awake long enough to get upstairs to bed. Once he heard Vernon snoring again, he carefully made his way back downstairs to the cupboard with his blanket. There he fell asleep where he knew he could hear anyone that was coming downstairs.

5. Chapter 5

Harry awoke at the sound of his Aunt softly walking down the stairs. He stayed quiet in the cupboard waiting to see which Aunt came downstairs. When the door opened softly and his Aunt crouched down outside, her one-word question told him everything he needed to know.

"Why?"

Crawling out of the cupboard and reaching up to touch her eye, he answered "Because I heal faster than you do."

Holding her arms out in a silent invitation, he crawled into her lap and she hugged him. "Oh, you stupid boy. I'm supposed to protect you even when it hurts, not the other way around." Rubbing his back, she catches his flinch as her hand touches the wound where the buckle caught him.

"Go up and get washed and bring the TCP and some cotton buds back down with you."

Letting him go she softly shoos him upstairs. "I'm sorry I didn't remember sooner Lily, but now I do I'm doing my best."

Once he was washed up he came downstairs with the TCP and cotton pads. Taking him into the kitchen Petunia lifted up his t-shirt and looked at the scabbed over wound. It looked like it had been done a week ago, not last night, and the bruises were a faded yellow rather than the vivid black that she was expecting. The wound looked an angry red that indicated that it was infected, and she saw similar marks on his back from previous times Vernon lost his temper with her nephew.

"It looks infected so I'm going to have to take the scab off and clean it properly."

Harry just nodded at her statement.

"This will hurt." She said just as she used the edge of a spoon to pull most of the scab off in one clean pull. Harry didn't even make a sound as she did this and the wound started to bleed with yellowish red blood indicating that it was indeed infected. Carefully removing the rest of the scab, she pressed the rest of the wound until only red blood came out. She then wiped it off with TCP and marvelled as it started scabbing over almost immediately.

Once she heard Vernon get out of bed Petunia left Harry making breakfast and phoned the Polkiss', a brief conversation and she'd arranged for Dudley to be dropped off at around 10 so that she could go shopping knowing that there was an adult looking out for him.

When Vernon came down for breakfast Harry almost goggled at the happy and relaxed expression on his face. He fair floated over to his Aunt and gave her a chaste kiss with the greeting of "Hello poppet, sorry about last night yesterday was a hard day."

Breakfast went more smoothly than he ever remembered, his Aunt wasn't waspish and his Uncle was happy. The only upset came when Aunt Petunia broached the subject of what they were doing today.

"Dudley, I need to get some new clothes today as well as the food for the weekend, so I've arranged with Mrs Polkiss that I'll drop you off there before I take the boy with me to help carry the bags."

"But Mum, I wanted to play Sonic." Dudley whined back.

"You can still play Sonic until we leave."

"But I wanted to finish the game today." Dudley looked to be winding himself up into an epic tantrum.

Cutting it off before it got going Vernon interjected "Dudley, listen to your mother. You've got all weekend to do that, and you can play with Piers at his house."

The thought of being able to play two-player changed Dudley's feelings about the situation completely and suddenly he was looking forward to going out.

"While we're out I was also going to get the boys things for Stonewall. Would you be able to take Dudley out tomorrow to get his uniform for Smeltings, and maybe you could explain what each bit is for while you're doing it."

"Anything for you Pet." Vernon smiled at his Aunt.

Even the post arriving and Vernon burning another two letters did little to dampen his mood.

A very confused Harry cleared up the table after breakfast.

Soon enough they were all leaving to drop Dudley off and go shopping. Once they were alone and out of sight Petunia stopped and looked at Harry.

"Do you want a hug?"

He stepped in and hugged her, then in a small voice he asked, "What happened this morning?"

"Can we get a cup of tea on the high street first and I'll try to explain."

Harry just nodded into her chest.

A short while later they were sitting in the corner of a small café, when Petunia started.

"It's because of last night. He's always been like this except when I was pregnant with Dudley. He comes home and drinks, then he'll take out his aggression. If I'm lucky he'll do it while we're still downstairs, otherwise it happens in the bedroom. The next morning he's always sunshine and light, and oh so apologetic. He'll probably bring me flowers tonight too."

"But why weren't you in a bad mood?"

"You set him off early, so he took it out on you instead of me. You shouldn't have done that, as it's my job to protect you, not the other way around. I know I've not done a very good job of it so far, but I have tried to protect both you and Dudley."

"I don't understand."

"That's ok you're only 11, you're not supposed to understand everything yet. Hey, I brought something I wanted to show you." With that, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a large envelope and reached into it.

"This is your first report card, I was so proud of you when we received it in the post, I even made your favourite dinner." She swallows hard before she gets to the next bit. "Then you came in with Dudley and I remember pulling out his report card to tell him how disappointed I was with him, but instead I got so angry with you. I don't know why, but suddenly the fact that you'd scored higher was an affront to me… I thought it was insulting. I'm sorry for taking it out on you, I don't know why I did it, just that something broke in me yesterday when I saw you in the cupboard, and I remembered.

"What I'm trying to say is that when you go to Hogwarts, that's the name of the school that Lily went to, I want you to do your best. Not for me, it's not worth doing it for me, but for your Mother, for Lily."

Shaking her head to bring her focus back to the present she continued "I know that you're not going to go to stonewall, but still need to buy you clothes, so we're going to buy you some new clothes to wear to school, but you have to promise that you won't try them on until you've left for school."

"I promise Aunty"

Petunia melts a little inside when he calls her Aunty rather than Aunt Petunia.

"We'll then grab some lunch and do the food shopping after lunch, does fish and chips sound alright?" She almost burst out laughing at the gobsmacked expression on Harry's face, and she couldn't help smiling. When was the last time her emotions felt so free?

"Is there anything else you'd like to do while we're out?"

She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing at that final question as his entire body language said that he felt like he was Alice waking up in Wonderland.

Harry couldn't believe what was happening, Aunt Petunia was laughing, and not the barking laugh he'd heard before, but instead a laugh full of some emotion he wasn't sure he could identify, but it was positive. When he'd been dragged out to carry the shopping before it was nothing like this. He'd been half-hoping that it would be better after yesterday and this morning, but he was sure that she was going to go back to normal once they got out. The way she behaved on the way to Piers house cemented in his mind that things were back to normal as she berated him for walking too close, too slow, getting in Dudley's way, and kept up the near-constant stream of vitriol that he was used to. Then she flipped again once they were away from Piers house, and she offered him a hug, then the café and now this.

Pulling his wits together he managed to squeak out a response "Could we go to the library?"

"Sure, we'll do that straight after lunch, though we won't be back in time to cook dinner so I'll need to go out to eat with Vernon and Dudley."

"What's going on? Why are you so different?" spilled out of his mouth before he could pull it back in.

Snapping out of her good mood she looked at him seriously. "I don't know. I know that doesn't help you much, but we don't always know everything. As I told you before, when you handed me the letter from your mum it was like something snapped in me and I felt freer than I've felt in years.

"I've not been a good parent to you for years and, whatever the reason, that's something that I'm going to need to live with for the rest of my life. But now that I'm free I'm going to do my best to do right by you for as long as it lasts. I can't promise it will last, but while it does will you promise to do your best as well?"

"Could it have been depression? It was in a book that I read yesterday about families that fight, and it said that people that are abused often suffer from it. It also said that they can have P… T… something."

"I don't know, it could be. Your mother would have probably known, as she was always the reader in the family. Do you like reading, is that why you wanted to go to the library?"

"I don't know.

"I went to the library to learn about meditation cause I don't want to disappear, and the Librarian was nice and helped me with the complicated bits, so I went back again yesterday and then she gave me a book about families that fight and leaflets for Childline."

"What do you like?"

"I, don't know, cooking maybe?"

She sighed at that last response as she realised just how bad they'd been at raising Harry.

"Come on, let's get you some new clothes."

With that they both got up and went shopping for clothes. Just as they were going to pay in BHS she saw a stuffed fox in the children's section. Leading Harry over she took the fox off the shelf crouched down and handed it to him.

"I just saw this and it reminded me of your mother. It was the last time she came home to Mum and Dad before she got married, and she was so excited that she'd finally learnt this new skill. She was fair to bursting, I don't know how she held it in together before we got up to our room. She closed the door and wedged the chair under the handle smiled at me and promptly turned into a fox with the greenest eyes you've ever seen. Her fur was a slightly darker red than this, but she was a fox. I screamed when she changed, and she collapsed on the floor laughing, I didn't even know foxes could roll on the floor laughing. Would you like it?"

His mother could turn into a fox! Mutely he clutched the fox to his chest and nodded his head.

"You'll need to give it back to me so that we can pay for it, then it will need to stay in the bag until you leave as we don't want Dudley or your Uncle to find it. Can you do that?"

Slowly holding out the fox he met her eyes and nodded his head seriously, before dashing tears away from his eyes with his sleeve.

His aunt bought a few things for herself as well and paid for the stuff with a debit card, waiting while they phoned the bank for authorisation. Then she took him to lunch and allowed him to choose what he wanted from the children's menu, while she ordered a rock and a large chips to split between both of them. He was also allowed to have a coke float, it was glorious.

After lunch it was off to the Library.

6. Chapter 6

Buoyed by the morning he'd just had, Harry fair dragged his Aunt into the Library just in case she changed her mind on the way. When he reached the counter he stopped and introduced his Aunt.

"Hi! This is my Aunt Petunia, I'm sorry that I never got your name, but this is the Librarian."

Looking a little non-plussed at the bubbly child in front of her, so much more alive than he was the previous two days, the Librarian introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Karen, are you OK?"

"I'm, doing ok I think." Petunia responded hesitantly, unsure of just what Karen had been told.

"Let me just get his book out and I'll be right with you." With that, she handed Harry the book on Buddhism he'd been reading, and he bounded off to sit at the table and started reading to the low mummer of the adults talking.

"I don't know what's going on in your home life, but I do know that either you or Harry are being abused by his reaction to this book. Now I'd report it, but I don't know where you live." She pulled out the pre-release book that she lent Harry yesterday.

With a defeated look Petunia responded carefully, "Yes, we are. Something happened yesterday, and I think it knocked me out of whatever… headspace I'd been in. I've been trying to protect him so long that I think the mask got stuck."

"I don't know anything about that, but we do carry leaflets for local services that can help. This one is for a support group and counselling service, and it's a no questions asked service. You don't have to do anything with it now but keep it in mind." She slipped a couple of leaflets over the counter to Petunia, who slipped them into her handbag.

"Thanks. Listen, could I get Harry a library card?"

"Sure, let me get the forms."

They both spend a few minutes filling out the forms and Petunia is the proud owner of a new library card in Harry's name.

"Can we borrow the book that Harry's reading?"

"Sorry, but that's a reference book, so they can only be reserved not lent out."

"Do you have any other books on Meditation?"

"I don't think so, let me check." Karen goes over to the card catalogue and looks to see if they've got anything that's applicable.

"No, sorry, there might be some in the main library in Guilford though. We do have a new video lending service though, and a selection of Open University videos you could look through. Why is he so interested in Meditation anyway?"

"He heard that it helped clarity of thought and calmness and decided it would help him at his new school." She lied smoothly; Karen just nodded knowingly.

Petunia went over to the Videos and had a look through the videos, most of them seemed to be for popular films from the last few years, but there was a section for educational videos. She found one called Introducing Religions, that was supposed to contain a section on Buddhism, and a second one dedicated to Buddhism, bringing the cases back to the desk.

"Can we check these out please?"

"Sure, you'll need to leave a £5 deposit, and you can ask for it back at any time as long as there are no videos outstanding."

Checking her purse Petunia pursed her lips, this would make food shopping a little tight, but they can get the money back next week when they return the videos.

"Ok, here you go." She handed over Harry's Library card, and put the videos in her handbag.

"Harry, we need to go sweetheart." Harry obediently packed up the book and handed it back to Karen.

"I borrowed a couple of videos on Buddhism that we can watch while Vernon is out tomorrow, and I also got you a library card. We'll get it back once we return the Videos".

After that they finished the shopping and headed for home, picking up Dudley on the way. Harry saw his Aunts mask slip back into place when they got within sight of the Polkiss' house, and he decided that he much preferred the Aunt he spent the day with. Once they got back he was sent upstairs to get cleaned up and put his "uniform" away, which he was careful to put behind his normal clothes. He hugged his fox before he put it with the new clothes, in the bottom of the bag he found a pre-packaged sandwich and a bag of crisps. He then rushed downstairs to help with the unpacking, only to see that Dudley had decided to "help" already, and currently had a bar of chocolate in his hands with the pack left open on the side. Carefully moving around the lump, he quickly helped his Aunt get all of the food away properly. Just as they finished they heard Vernon's car pulling up to the drive.

As his Aunt had predicted, Vernon came in with a bouquet of Petunias, Tulips, and Roses, even though tulips were out of season.

"These are for you my pet" Vernon cooed at Petunia as he handed her the bouquet.

"Aww, they're beautiful. Boy! Put these into water, I'll deal with them in the morning.

"Honey, we've only just got home, so how about we take Dudley to Beefeater and have a meal out?"

"That sounds like a good idea. Boy, head up to your room, we're going out for dinner, but because you made your Aunt late you can go without."

Sullenly Harry goes upstairs to his room, before he remembers the sandwich and crisps, and the Mars bar hidden behind his drawer. Was this his Aunt protecting him again?

After thinking about it for a while, he decided he didn't know, and ate the sandwich and crisps for dinner, and savoured the Mars bar for dessert. He then settled down to try and meditate. A fruitless few hours later he was thoroughly bored and looking around for something to do when Vernon's car drove onto the driveway.

"Come on Vernon, let's get you inside."

"I'm fine pet, I know you don't like to drive but I can get us home."

"No Vernon, we're already home. Just turn around and like that, that's right, now this way."

"That's home, how did we get home, there better not have been any freakish stuff going on."

"No, I just drove us home and you fell asleep in the car. Dudley, get the door open and then go to bed."

"Yes mum."

The sound of the front door opening, and Dudley's footsteps came up before his bedroom door was slammed open.

"You better watch out freak, Dad said that we're getting my uniform tomorrow, and it includes a beating stick. He said that he's going to show me how to use it, and that I can practice using it on you."

That one statement made Harry freeze, and start to shake. He didn't even notice Dudley leave, or his Aunt manhandle Vernon into bed. He did notice when his Aunt gently opened the door and softly said "Goodnight sweetheart" before the soft click of her bedroom door was heard through the house. Once he heard his Uncles snores, he quietly pulled his drawer open and took out fox before padding downstairs to the cupboard.

7. Chapter 7

The sound of the soft tread of his Aunts feet on the stairs woke Harry, as he woke he realised he was clutching Fox to his chest. Quickly bundling fox up in his blanket, he crawled out of the cupboard just as his Aunt reached the bottom of the stairs. After a quick hug, he headed up to his room to stash his blanket and Fox, before cleaning up and helping his Aunt with breakfast. As it was a Saturday, they had a bit of a wait before Vernon woke up, and spent the time just sitting together drinking a cup of tea. Once they heard he was awake they finished breakfast, and Harry ate a quick bowl of cereal before he was shooed into the back garden to begin weeding, with a whispered promise that he'd be called in once they were gone.

Apart from Vernon bringing out a bundle of letters to burn and swearing at him, Harry was left to his own devices for most of the morning. The thing about Dudley being able to practice on him when they got home faded away from his mind with the monotonous task of pulling up the new weeds before they took hold.

Eventually, his Aunt called him in, admonished him about not tracking mud into the house otherwise he'd be the one cleaning the floor. A few hours later they'd finished watching both videos. Only around 20 minutes of which had been about meditation. They were now sitting together eating sandwiches in the living room. Harry still couldn't believe that he was allowed to sit on the chairs in the living room, this time last week his Aunt would have chased him off into his cupboard. He was startled out of his thoughts as her voice broke the silence, reflexively looking at her face for any signs of being upset or angry he relaxed again when it was clear that she was relaxed and had a strange expression on her face.

"Are you OK?"

"I'm fine"

"OK, I said, would you like to practice meditating with me in the mornings before they get up?"

"I wouldn't want to put you out, I can do it in my room."

"I'm asking because I'd like to do it with you, it's something I couldn't share with your Mum, so I'd like to share it with you."

"Uh, OK?"

With his slightly confused acceptance, she bursts into tears at another reminder of just how badly she's brought up Lily's son, and how badly she'd failed. Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Harry.

"Right, can you go and get the sheets off the beds and I'll put them on to wash. Then I'll help you put the clean sheets back on the bed. After that we can work on the front garden together."

It was only when his Aunt came upstairs with him and got the clean sheets out of airing cupboard that he realised that when she said we, she didn't mean just him. She even showed him how to do a hospital corner on the sheets, which is what she'd kept telling him off about over the years and called him stupid for not knowing. By the time Dudley and Vernon came home he found that he was enjoying working with his Aunt, and he didn't know why.

Even being forced to stand in as the training dummy for Dudley wasn't that bad as Vernon was showing him how to use his baton to disable an opponent rather than kill, so he got away with bruises rather than being beaten around the head. Vernon emphasised just how important it is that Dudley learns how to pull his blow so that his victims, sorry opponents don't end up in hospital, and the police get involved. Even being sent to bed without dinner didn't put too big a dent into his day. It wasn't the first time he'd gone to bed hungry, and at least he had lunch. It was waking up in the night to Vernon bellowing at his Aunt, and her cries as she was dragged into the bedroom that did it. He grabbed Fox from her hiding place and clutched her to his chest as he quietly cried himself to sleep.

Petunia knew when she started gardening with Harry that it was a bad idea, but she'd been enjoying working with him rather than ordering him around and doing her own thing. It was less lonely for a start. It was when she heard the car door slam that she realised that she'd let her guard down too much. She tried to stand up and look stern, but she knew even as she did it, that it was too late. Vernon didn't say anything when he brought the bags in with Dudley, but she could see from the set of his shoulders that he'd seen.

At dinner time she contrived some excuse to sent Harry to bed with no food. Hopefully, that would be enough punishment that Vernon wouldn't decide to add more. After dinner was finished and cleaned up, and Dudley was sent up, that's when it happened.

Vernon sat on the sofa instead of his customary armchair with the weekend film on TV. Petunia sat in her armchair, a glass of water on the side table. During the ad break, Vernon broke the silence, patting on the seat next to him.

"Come on pet, come sit next to me."

Petunia couldn't help herself, she froze and shook her head.

"I said, come and sit next to me!" he growled out.

Meekly, she stood up and moved over to sit next to her.

Putting his hand on her leg and squeezing, he continued.

"I thought we agreed that we wanted nothing to do with the freak, and that we would only do what we needed to do to prevent social services from stopping by."

Mutely she shook her head.

"Didn't we."

He squeezed her leg tighter.

"Vernon, you're hurting me."

"Didn't we!"

"Yes Vernon" she squeaked out, tears of pain glistening at the corners of her eyes.

"It doesn't look like you remembered, I'll give you another lesson tonight, and I'll show you why 'It's not muggle baiting when you're defending your family' doesn't wash. Do you understand?"

"Yes Vernon"

"I don't think you do."

At which he turns off the TV and grabs her hair before she can get away then drags her upstairs to the bedroom.

8. Chapter 8

The soft click of a door woke Harry up, the sunlight streaming under his curtains brought him to full wakefulness. Panicking he thrashed around until he realised that he was in his new bed in Dudley's old toy room. Searching around for a minute, he found his glasses and padded out of his bedroom, taking care not to let the door make any noise as he opened and closed it. The faint sound of snuffling floated up the stairs, so he padded down to see what it was.

Curled up on the end of the sofa he saw his Aunt crying softly.

"Aunt Petunia, are you ok?"

Getting no response he walks round in front of her and repeats himself. Still getting no response he pushes Fox towards her. Feeling the plush on her hand she looks up to see Harry.

"Can I hug you?" he asks in a small voice.

Mutely she nods, and he climbs onto the sofa next to her and tries to hug her the way she hugged him the other day. He also tries to give her the feeling of warmth and comfort that he feels when he's cocooned in his blanket in the Cupboard. He's not sure when it happens, but he falls asleep hugging her and the next thing he knows she's shaking him awake gently. The clock on the wall shows that it's now six in the morning, and it takes him a couple of moments to remember where he is and why.

Petunia looks down with a sad smile on her face. She can't believe that she ever resented his presence when she looks at him there. Then he looks up at her and she gives him a sad smile. The pain from last night has died down a little so they both need to get moving before it gets too late.

"We need to move, thank you for the hug, it's really helped. Go get washed up and we'll do the prep for breakfast and then try to meditate, is that OK?"

Mutely he nods, so she gives him one last squeeze before reaching up and wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Hey, we're both still alive and that's what counts right? Don't forget your fox". He turns back and gives her a sad smile before trudging back upstairs.

Once breakfast is done they both sit down on the floor opposite each other and try to meditate. Petunia sets an egg timer for an hour beside them so that they stop before Vernon is likely to wake up. They then get ready for the day and Petunia gets out one of his schoolbooks and starts going through it with him until they hear Vernon moving around upstairs. Putting the book away, they finish preparing breakfast as Vernon comes downstairs looking happy and relaxed. He walks over and gives her a peck on the lips.

"Hello poppet, this looks like a brilliant spread, you've outdone yourself today. And do you want to know what's even better? It's Sunday, what's so good about Sunday? There's no post."

Dudley joins them at the table and they start breakfast. Halfway through breakfast there's a clatter at the front door, and suddenly a deluge of letters come through the door. Vernon's face goes bright red, and a vein starts pulsing at his temple. He stands up to start moving the post, and Harry goes to stand up too. Vernon's fist lashes out and catches him round the cheek.

"Sit there and don't move, I'm going to burn these letters and then we're going to have a normal day, absolutely nothing Freakish is going to happen."

As soon as the front door was cleared Dudley fled for the park, and this set the template for the next week.

In the evening, Harry or Petunia would set him off early, or he'd go off later and it would hurt more. They'd find the other one downstairs in the morning and comfort each other before prepping breakfast, practicing meditation, and finding out where the letters were going to turn up next. After they showed up rolled up in the boiled eggs, Vernon started to get up earlier so that he could watch Harry cook. Dudley didn't get much of a chance to bully him, as he was confined to the home by order of Vernon, though Petunia managed to get the videos back and get the deposit before they needed it for food.

The last straw came the next Saturday, when letters came in through every window and even busted open the old Chimney.

"Right everyone pack a change of clothes we're leaving."

It was a very tired family with a very angry Vernon that arrived at a small single room lodge on the edge of a lake near Rhyd-Ddu in Wales. They'd needed to walk the last part from the road in the dark. Dumping three sleeping bags down on floor along with a bag of supplies that he'd forced Harry to carry he turned to the family.

"There's absolutely no bloody way that they'll be able to get post to us out here. Might as well get some sleep."

At which he hands a sleeping bag to Dudley and Petunia and shoves Harry into the corner.

Petunia woke up to the sound of someone thrashing around and squirming. Climbing out of her sleeping bag she carefully crawls across the floor until she reaches Harry, who seems to be in the throes of a nightmare.

Shaking him gently, she whispers softly "Harry. Harry, wake up, your having a nightmare." When that doesn't work she pulls him up into her arms and hugs him gently, trying to reassure him that he's safe, whispering that it's going to be ok. She's not sure how long she's been holding him when the room starts to light up. At first it looks like it might be dawn, but then she notices that the light is coming in from the ceiling. Looking up she sees the cabin around her, Vernon and Dudley, and all of their gear start to fade away as she finds herself looking at a sun blasted landscape. Strange lizards with 6 legs scamper over the rocks and insects the size of dogs fly around. That world fades away to a rain forest with parrot faced monkeys leaping from tree to tree. Then it's an icy tundra, and there's a large squat bear with long white fur and a spiral horn jutting out from its nose. Sniffing, it turns towards her and charges. She stifles a scream in Harry's hair as it fades out just before it reaches them. Then she sees wisps of something floating of both their bodies, and tiny birds with tentacles instead of beaks come down and start feeding on them. Each wisp that is eaten sends a shock through her, and brings a memory to the front that she didn't even know she had. Lily walking in while Vernon is beating her, and James showing Vernon just why domestic abuse is so rare in the magical world. Standing by Lily as her maid of honour. Making it to a shelter with Harry and Dudley. Through all of the memories and long white beard in the darkness. Then that world fades out and she's in a forest, and the wisps are now a visible aura, a small marsupial with tentacles instead of a mouth and a long prehensile tail climbs up her arm and looks at her with soulful eyes before burrowing into her hair and holding onto the back of her neck. A large raptor swoops down and grabs another marsupial.

Through it all, she keeps hugging Harry and whispering that it's ok, he's safe and she won't let anything happen to him. Another few worlds go by and then the aura starts to be drawn away to great white rivers in the sky. In this world Harry starts to glow, and as the next world fades in the glow takes on the form of a flower. Petunia is faintly aware of the creature gripping her neck as though it's the only anchor in the storm, and then she looks down at her hand and sees it start to evaporate, pulling up into the rivers that seem so much closer than they were. Finally, the flower that is glowing around Harry blooms into a beautiful Lily, and Harry starts to calm down. All at once his breathing evens out and he falls into a deep sleep, as soon as he does the worlds collapse back together and the darkness of the cabin obliterates the light. Crying tears of relief she lies down next to Harry and falls into an exhausted sleep.

9. Chapter 9

In the morning Petunia woke up to the feeling of something crawling over her face. As she opened her eyes she saw the cutest little marsupial, no bigger than the palm of her hand. Then she noticed the tentacles where it's mouth should be and the events of last night returned with a rush. Jerking back slightly she let out a small squeak, not enough to wake Vernon, but more than enough to wake Harry, who was lying next to her. At the sudden movement it quickly climbed round her head and buried itself under her hair, holding onto the back of her neck.

She watched as Harry went from waking up to full alertness in a couple of seconds and felt her heart break again at his upbringing and the part that she played in it. All thoughts of her hitch hiker fled from her mind as she saw the look of sheer panic at waking up in an unfamiliar location.

"It's OK, your safe."

At the sound of her voice he visibly calmed, a look of confusion coming over his face. Looking around quickly, she found his glasses and pressed them into his hand. Fumbling them slightly, he managed to put them on. Turning to look at her he went to speak before she shook her head and looked meaningly towards Vernon. Seeing comprehension in his face, she stood up and softly walked over to where their shoes and coats were and grabbed hers. Seeing Harry doing the same she walked over to the door and turned the key in the lock as gently as she could. The Ch-Thunk still sounded loudly through the cabin as they both froze and looked towards Vernon, who stopped snoring at the noise. After a long moment, he coughed, snored and turned over in his sleep. Carefully she opened the door, the unoiled hinges letting out a piercing shriek that seemed loud in the early morning silence. Both of them stepped out onto the stone porch before she closed the door behind them. After they put their shoes on they walked away from the cabin a little way and stopped to look at the countryside around them in the faint morning light. In front of the cabin was a muddy bank that lead down to a lake with faint traces of morning mist wisping up from the surface. The grass around them was long and unkempt, the boundary wall of an old tumbledown home to the right. Looking up and across the lake they could see the boat house and carpark that Vernon had been trying to find last night, as well as the island that he told Dudley he used to play on, and they could leave Harry on.

Seeing nothing else to sit on, they wordlessly headed over to the wall and brushed off the dew before sitting down.

Breaking the comfortable silence, Harry voiced the question that had been on his lips since she shook her head at him.

"What happened?"

"You had a nightmare, do you remember it?"

"Vernon threw me into a corner and started beating me with his belt, I managed to escape but Dudley and his gang kept catching me and dragging me back to be beaten again. Then I found a hiding place that felt comfortable, but that only stopped them for a while before Vernon reached in and dragged me out and beat me worse than before. I'd keep escaping to the hiding places, but they kept finding me until the white light came."

"That wasn't the only thing that happened." She described what happened after she started hugging him to calm him down. As she finished she felt something move under her hair on her neck. Carefully she reached under her hair and pulled out a small creature that looks like a numbat with furry little tentacles instead of a mouth and nose. It lifted it's tentacles and seemed to sniff the air before scampering onto Harry and climbing onto his chest and running it's tentacles over him like it was ferreting out food.

Harry laughed involuntarily as it felt like it tickle over his skin through his t-shirt. Then it seemed to find something, and with a yank it pulled it out and seemed to munch on it contentedly.

"Hey, stop that, that tickles. Ouch! What was that for?" Harry gave the creature an offended look that made Petunia laugh. They settled into a companiable silence as it finished eating whatever it was it had found. It then moved back to Petunia, settling down in her lap and seemed to go to sleep.

"It's nice out here, it's a pity Vernon is so attached to his creature comforts, as it's been in his family for years.

"Technically, it belongs to his brother as the eldest, but he told me that we could use it any time at our wedding."

They continued to sit there in companionable silence until they saw a car drive past in the distance.

"Let's go see what we can put together for breakfast, and then we'll wake up the two lumps." Harry giggled at her description of Vernon and Dudley. The giggle caused her to freeze and think back at the words she used. Blast, where did that come from, as it felt entirely natural but she hasn't done that for years not since Vernon… No, it wasn't just Vernon, there was also that white beard, being happy while she was forced to sign a document in blood, and suddenly she wanted to please Vernon and do what he said. It was more than that, it was after she'd managed to get to a shelter with both the boys, they were still breastfeeding and she'd been so happy that she was pregnant again. Then he was so Angry, and there was blood, so much blood, so she ran. A few years later Dudley wanted a sibling and so they tried again, but nothing worked, and that was her fault.

Harry stopped as he heard his Aunt collapse behind him and start weeping. Turning back he saw a look of absolute horror and despair on her face.

"Aunt Petunia? Aunt Petunia? Are you OK Aunty?" Not knowing what else to do he carefully walked up to her and touched her shoulder. When he did she shrieked and pulled away from him, curling up into a ball on the floor. The creature came out from under her hair, stood on her shoulder and hissed at him.

Putting his hands up he backed away a couple of steps and sat down in the grass.

"OK, OK, I get it I'm not going to hurt her.

Look, I'm just sitting down over here and I'm going to watch over her and make sure she's safe."

Looking mollified the creature turns around a couple of times then curls up on her shoulder.

He was so intent on his Aunt that he didn't notice Vernon shouting for them, or even when he came up behind him. He jumped when a meaty hand landed on his shoulder and hauled him to his feet. The creature on Petunias shoulder stood up and hissed at Vernon, but was completely ignored.

"What did you do boy! What have I told you about using your freakishness around us?"

"But I… I didn't do anything sir, she just collapsed."

"Don't lie to me boy, I know it was you as it's always your freakishness that causes trouble." A meaty thunk followed as Harry had the wind knocked out of him and Vernon began a beating worse than any he'd experienced before.

The quiet whimpers of pain broke through into the world where Petunia was being beaten again and again for daring to bring another crying brat into the world when they already had two to look after. Something in those whimpers reminded her of the children and she pulled herself back into the real world. Coming back to reality in a rush, she saw Vernon beating Harry who looked more like a bloody mess than a boy at this point.

"No, Vernon, Stop! You're killing him." Staggering to her feet she rushed over and tried to push him away, only to be backhanded away to land in a crumpled heap. Pulling herself up again she screamed at him in anger and fear "Stop it! Get away from him!". As she shouted the last bit Vernon went cartwheeling away to land in a heap by the wall, a look of naked fear on his face. She half staggered, half crawled over to Harry and cradled his head in her lap. A series of cracks echoed out over the hills and 3 people in robes appeared. The creature that had somehow clung to her shoulder squeaked and hid under her hair. Looking up, she saw Dudley standing by the cabin, and she could see how pale he looked from here.

One of the people raised a wand and made some intricate gestures.

"No wands, so it looks like it's the kids first serious accidental magic. Standard procedure, obliviate the two muggles and heal up the kid, then write up the report when we get back. And no half-arsing the obliviation like last time Peters, we don't want to come back and find that it wore off and he beat them to death next time." They said in a male voice.

The person then came over and crouched down beside Petunia. "Hi, I'm Auror Williamson, is it ok if I cast some spells on your kid?" Mutely she nodded, still trying to process what happened. She watched as he cast a couple of spells, and then did a few more to close the wounds and heal a couple of fractures.

"What's your name love?"

"Petunia."

"OK Petunia, I've done what I can here, but what we'd normally do is obliviate the memory of an event like this from the kids mind so that it doesn't cause them undue stress and make their magic act out more later. Is it ok if I do that now?"

She nods.

"OK, and done. You've done really well, would you like me to obliviate you as well?"

Mutely she shakes her head and he nods approvingly.

"That makes things easier. With that out of the way, is there anything we can do to stop this from happening again as soon as we leave?"

Finding her voice she takes a couple of attempts to reply before getting out, "Could you get those two back into their sleeping bags in the cabin and help me get him down there?"

"Sure, come on I've got your kid, and the other two will bring your husband.

"Now I'm going to need your last name for the records, and your kids name."

"Dursley, it's Dursley, and he's Harry."

"Nice, named him after Harry Potter did you? I've got a kid starting Hogwarts in a few years, and Harry's all he can talk about. Did you know that Harry Potter is supposed to be going to Hogwarts this year?"

Petunia shakes her head.

"Right, that's all done now, do you want me to wake them up now?"

"No… Just Harry."

"OK, the other two should wake up in half an hour."

He waved his wand at Harry before disappearing with a soft crack.

Harry came around in the cabin, how he got there was a little hazy and he felt like he'd been caught by Dudley's gang and used as a punching bag. Looking around he realised that he had his glasses on his face, and his Aunt was sitting on a stool by the door looking shocked.

"Aunty, are you OK?"

"I'm not sure, maybe, yes?"

He got up and walked over to her. "Do you want a hug?"

"Yes please."

With that he threw himself into her arms and they gave each other comfort. While they were hugging, the creature came out from Petunias hair and sniffed around Harry's head. Climbing over to him it started rooting around in his hair before it found something and tugged hard. Harry stiffened as the memories of the last half hour before he blacked out from pain came back to him. The creature then sniffed around some more and scampered over to Vernon. Realising what had just happened, Petunia scrambled to catch it before it could do the same to Vernon, and then hugged it to her chest, where it settled and seemed content to draw something out of her finger.

That brought both of them out of the moment and they hurried to get breakfast ready for Vernon and Dudley before they woke up again.

10. Chapter 10

Morning take two passed much more acceptably, though Harry was withdrawn as he struggled to process the sudden knowledge of what happened. Even the fact that they were working on a battered old Trangia didn't dampen Vernon's mood. Especially once they ate with no post arriving. Even Dudley chasing Harry around in "Youthful high spirits" couldn't dampen Vernon's mood, on the contrary it seemed to Petunia that it increased it. Instead, her thoughts turned to Nixie hiding beneath her hair. She knew that it came back with her last night, but it didn't seem to be dangerous, if anything it seemed like it was hiding from those birds when it climbed onto her. Not to mention what it did to Harry before breakfast, almost like it ate the spell the Auror cast on him.

But as with all good things, the morning came to an end when a Giant of a man pulled up in the parking area of the boat house opposite the cabin on a motorcycle with a sidecar. It was clear from his wild hair that he wasn't wearing a crash helmet and that set off Vernon's freak meter, not that the motorcycle didn't do that anyway. Walking over to a boat he lifted a wooden rowing boat, that would have taken a few men to lift, into the water as though it was an inflatable. Finding a pair of oars, he got in and started to row over the lake.

Petunia watched as Vernon got up and went into the cabin, a moment later he came out carrying a double-barrelled shotgun and a handful of bright orange shells, which he proceeded to load. Seeing something going on, Harry ran back to the cabin followed by an exhausted Dudley. Not taking any chances, Harry hid behind his Aunt to deter Dudley taking advantage of the fact he was no longer running around. They both watched what was going on with a perverse sense of horror, as the man that looked large on the other shore looked positively gigantic as he got closer. Vernon stomped down to the beach to meet him as his boat pulled up to the shore.

"Clear off, we don't want no truck with Freaks like you." He waved the shotgun in the man's direction as he said that.

"Oh, shuddup you stupid muggle, and put that down afore you put someone's eye out."

"Don't come any closer, I'm warning you!" Vernon let out shakily.

The man ignored him in the same way that Vernon might ignore a toddler with a toy sword and came up the shore leaving deep footprints in the mud.

As he got closer Vernon pulled the trigger and let both barrels off into the man's chest. The man didn't even seem to notice as he reached out and grabbed the shotgun before bending the barrel with no apparent effort.

"But what, how? That should have killed you" blurted Dudley.

The man patted his jacket "T'is made out of Peruvian Vipertooth dragonhide leather with mokeskin pockets, you'd need som'ing a lot stronger than birdshot to even scuff it"

"Wooha, cool."

"Now where's me manners. I'm Hagrid, Gameskeeper of Hogwarts, which one of you is Harry?"

Gingerly Harry raises his hand.

"Right, this is for you." He reaches into his pockets and pulls out a couple of mice, something wrapped in a handkerchief and a parchment letter. "Sorry 'm late, the device the 'eadmaster gave me stopped working a coupl'a hours ago so I had to land and go by road."

"Now listen here, Harry's not going to any Freak school, he's signed up to Stonewall High, and that's that." Vernon blusters while trying to take the letter away.

Gently pushing Vernon out of the way Hagrid hands the letter to Harry, "Not going to 'ogwarts? I'd never 'ear such a thing, both 'is parents went, n 'is grandparents too. No, 'is been signed up since birth and 'is going, it's just the way it is."

Sharing a glance with his Aunt, who nodded at him encouragingly, he slipped his finger under the wax seal and opened the letter. Inside was an additional piece of parchment which he removed to read the letter. After reading it, he handed it to Aunt Petunia who read it too. Once she finished, she looked up at Hagrid.

"Hagrid? If we'd opened one before, how exactly would we have sent a reply, as it says here that you expect our owl."

"'Ah don't rightly know, the 'eadmaster just told me that 'arry hadn't received it and that it needed ta be 'and delivered.

"Anyway, it's getting late, so we need to get going if we're going to get your supplies from Diagon Alley"

Looking at his Aunt, torn between going with Hagrid and not leaving her alone with Vernon, "Hagrid, would it be OK if Aunt Petunia came with us?"

"'ah suppose it don't make no difference, so if'n ya sure."

"But pet, you can't go, they're Freaks."

"I'm going Vernon, and maybe I can sort out the stipend stuff while I'm there. Why don't you have the rest of the week bonding with Dudley, show him the things that you used to do and I'll make sure the brat doesn't damage anything when we get home."

Dudley looks at his dad with a pleading look, a whole week of being spoiled by his dad? Count him in.

Seeing the look on Dudleys face he turned back to Petunia with a look that promised a reckoning when he got home. "I suppose that would be OK, I'll see you at home and make sure you keep the freak under control."

Completely missing the subtext, Hagrid clapped his hands together "Right, that's sorted then, let's go."

11. Chapter 11

The journey to London was a lot quicker than the journey to the cabin had been because they didn't have to sit in holiday traffic, instead Hagrid did something to the bike and it took off and they flew the entire way. It was around 2 o'clock when they arrived in a small carpark near Charing Cross Station and they felt a slight shiver as they crossed over some invisible boundary. Harry didn't notice, but he did notice when his Aunt shivered. Hagrid then lead them to a dingy pub just down the road from the station, as he got to the door he suddenly stopped and turned to Harry.

"Right, just remembered ya probably want ta grab your Aunts… Blimey, never mind then." He tailed off as he noticed that Petunia was standing right beside Harry. With that he lead them through the pub and into the back, somewhat delayed when Harry's name was mentioned and they were mobbed by the entirety of the late lunchtime rush. Both Harry and Petunia, having had traumatic experiences in the last few days, cowered back against the bar until Tom, the barkeeper shouted at the crowd to give them space. Once they got into the back there was a glowing brick in the middle of the wall, and Nixie clambered down from Petunia's neck to try to get at a tasty morsel. With a little bit of juggling Harry and Petunia managed to stop it from jumping at the wall and it settled down in her arms as she stroked it and gave it her thumb to suck on. Hagrid turned to them and paused mouth open as they seemed to grasp at nothing before he continued.

"Right, this is the entrance to Diagon Ally, all you need to do is tap your wand to this brick. It's 6 up and 3 across from the bin here." He indicated the glowing brick with his umbrella before tapping it. The entire wall folded back in on itself forming an archway into the alley proper.

Harry and Petunia gawked like Tourists visiting Buckingham palace for the first time as Hagrid lead them up the alley towards the bank. The glowing words above the doors standing out even from the end of the street. He lead them into the building under the words and took them to a queue, turning to them he started to explain that they could see.

"This 'ere is Gringotts, and it's run by Goblins. Now, they're mean little buggers, but they knows money and security. As such there's no safer place to keep ya stuff, 'cept maybe Hogwarts. If ya respectful to them, they'll be respectful to you."

Once they reached the end of the queue the goblin teller looked down at them from the counter.

"Well?" the goblin sneered down at them.

Hagrid looked up at the counter, "We're here to get some money from Harry Potters account."

"And does Mr Potter have his key?"

"Yes, right here, one mo." Hagrid sorted through his pockets and eventually extracted a key and a letter. He handed the key over first. The goblin waved it's hand over the key and Harry and Petunia saw that the key glowed with a series of pulses as his fingers passed over it.

"Very well, the key is in order, anything else?"

"Yes, I have a letter, and I need to get the you know what from this vault" Hagrid hands over the letter.

"Griphook, these people need to get money from these vaults, take them down so they can do it."

A goblin comes over to the counter when his name is called and takes both the key and the letter before leading them towards a door at the back of the lobby. As they reach the door one of the guards stops them and says.

"We can't let you down to the vaults with your familiar, you'll need to wait here." Surprised, Harry and Petunia glance at each other before she responds.

"OK Harry, you go on ahead with Hagrid, and I'll try and get the other stuff sorted up here. If you get back before me can you wait by the front door?"

"I'll see that he's there Petunia" Hagrid responds before following Griphook through the door.

Turning back to the Guard, Petunia address him.

"Would I be able to speak to someone about the stipend for Harry Potter, as we were unable to arrange things before now as we didn't know where to come."

"I can't help you with that, you need to see Ragnack at the desk over there."

Heading over to the desk with a busy looking goblin going through paperwork, she waits patiently while he finishes what he's currently doing. When he's done he looks up and growls.

"Well, how can I help you?"

Feeling a little intimidated, Petunia curtsies before replying. "I'm one of Harry Potters Guardians, and when we took charge of him we were told that we would get a stipend, but we were unable to let anyone know where the money needed to go because there was no forwarding address."

Looking at her as if she's stupid he responds "Very well, I'll see if Harry Potters account manager is available, do be aware that you will be charged a Galleon if you're wasting his time. Please wait over there." He indicates an empty patch of floor off to one side before calling over a goblin and sending it off with a message.

A couple of minutes later the goblin returns and walks up to her "Kragnast has a few minutes free now, follow me".

Still feeling a little lost in such a different environment she did the only thing she could and followed the goblin through a maze of corridors to an unassuming door with a distinct pattern glowing along the centre.

Knocking on the door, she waits for a reply. A goblin calls out from inside "Come in and stop wasting time with human niceties".

Entering she finds herself in an office that wouldn't look out of place in any legal office apart from the mace that's sitting propped up against the side of the desk. Making her way over to the only chair available she sat down.

"I understand that you're hear about the stipend for Harry Potter. Now I was given to understand that he was being raised in the muggle world, so tell me why a witch is here before I break your wand arm and have you chucked out of the bank."

Confused Petunia responded "I'm not a witch. I've never been a witch."

"Don't lie to me, especially while you're cuddling an Aictuilaxr, if you weren't a witch you wouldn't even be able to feel it, let alone see it."

"But Nixie came back with me once Harry calmed down last night, I've got no idea what an Aictui..r is. But I'm not a witch."

Kragnast sat back in his chair, one finger tapping on the arm as he thought.

"OK, lets say I believe you, you've offered no proof of what you've said, and I can only discuss Mr Potters accounts with his legal or magical guardians. There is a way to prove that you're telling the truth, but if you're lying you'll be guilty of lying on a legal document which is crime under goblin law and carries a minimum sentence of working in the mines up to death by dragon for the worst offences.

"Now, before I do this I'll give you a chance to pay the galleon and leave."

Petunia looked at him for a long moment weighing up the costs of doing this before responding. After the first minute Kragnast nodded approvingly. Finally, she looked up.

"I'll do it, I'll take your test and prove that I'm telling the truth."

"Very well follow me." He stands up and grabs the mace, hefting it easily, before leading her off to another door.

"Here we are, once you go through this door you're committed to this, if you back out after you enter you'll be arrested and will be likely to need to pay a large fine. If you're sure, enter the door and we'll get started."

Swallowing, Petunia opens the door and steps inside. In the room is a single pedestal with a black orb resting on top, off to one side is a table with pieces of parchment, quills and ink. A small brazier burns next to the table, and an ancient looking goblin sits against the far wall reading some paperwork.

"Esteemed Master Banlirg, we need an oath confirmation of identity and guardianship." Banlirg gets up and walks over to the table.

"Names and clarification?"

Kragnast looks towards Petunia "What's your name witch?"

"Petunia Dursley, and I'm not a witch."

Kragnast turns back to Banlirg and responds "Petunia Dursley claims guardianship of Harry Potter, she also claims that she is not a witch."

Banlirg nods and thinks for a moment before writing something down on a piece of parchment with elegant script.

"If this is acceptable, let her know what she is required to do and how it works, then you can proceed." He then hands the parchment to Kragnast. Looking at it Kragnast nods, and then hands the parchment to Petunia.

"Is this acceptable?"

Looking down she reads the oath.

I Petunia Dursley swear that I am the legal guardian of Harry Potter and

that to my knowledge I am not and never have been a witch.

"It looks acceptable sir."

"Very well, what you're going to do is place your hand on that orb and recite the oath as written. This orb uses the same magic as unbreakable vows but doesn't bind you to the oath. Instead, if the oath is accepted the floor will light up with the confirmation magic. When you put your hand on the orb, it will draw on your magic and glow. I will be able to interpret the glow, and if it shows that you are under any compulsions I will stop the oath and you will be removed to have the compulsions removed at your own cost before being given the option to try taking the oath again, if you can't afford to have the compulsions removed you will be required to work for 5 Galleons a day until the cost has been defrayed. Though given your familiar I doubt you have any compulsions on you.

"If you understand what I've told you walk to the centre of the room and place your hand on the orb, once you do you will not be able to remove your hand until you've taken the oath or I remove it for you."

Kragnast watched as the witch walked to the centre of the room before hesitantly putting her hand on the orb. Once she did the orb lit up with a bright royal blue. While he was surprised with the brightness, the blue indicated that she had no compulsions or obliviations affecting her. Nodding he handed her the oath and he felt her familiar move up to her shoulder as she dislodged it. Even more surprisingly, she read the oath correctly the first time and the orb immediately extinguished as the pattern on the floor lit up a brilliant white. What most witches and wizards don't realise is that their magic will try to prevent them from making a false oath, so if there were any doubts in her mind she'd have needed at least another try.

"Very well Mrs Dursley, you've passed successfully, if you'll hand me the oath I'll dispose of it here and we can return to my office."

Petunia watched as the parchment that her oath was written on burned to ash in the fire before following Kragnast back to his office. Once they were seated Kragnast opened the conversation.

"Mrs Dursley, I am honestly surprised that you were able to take that oath, as non-magicals can't even get the orb to activate, and squibs it would show as a dull purple as it wouldn't be able to take enough magic to activate properly.

"This means that despite your belief, you are in fact a witch. Let me be the first to welcome you to the magical world. Now being magical opens up some new opportunities for you, the first of which is that you could become the Magical Guardian of Mr Potter as well as his legal guardian. You can also buy a wand, though you should be warned that owning a wand over the age of 16 is illegal in Magical Britain unless you have OWLs in the wanded subjects or are registered as a student with a Tutor or an Educational institution that teaches OWLs, the punishment for breaking this law is having your wand snapped and your magic bound.

"You are also allowed to open an account with Gringotts and register a family name.

"Finally, you are allowed to purchase portkeys from a Ministry registered vendor, of which Gringotts is one, and also learn to apparate at the Ministry. Incidentally, there are no requirements for owning a wand or passing OWLs in order to be certified for apparition. If you don't wish to attend the Ministry, we at Gringotts would be willing to teach you the necessities for it and bring in an examiner from the Ministry."

"On the subject of Harry's stipend, our records indicate that one Petunia Dursley already has a vault with us, and she is receiving 10 Galleons a week, which is being taken out as muggle money. After transaction fees, that works out to around £45 a week."

Petunia stared at him with a stunned expression at that last statement. Pulling her scattered thoughts together she took her purse from her bag and placed the debit card on the desk.

"As we have established that I am Petunia Dursley and the legal guardian of Harry, would you be able to redirect the stipend to this account?"

"I'm afraid that by law we are not allowed to work with the muggle world, which is why our transaction fees are so high for converting to muggle money. But if you can bring me a letter from Harry's magical guardian I can certainly change the vault where the money goes to one of your choice."

Petunia stops for a few moments at this new roadblock, trying to go through everything that was covered today.

"Would I be able to become Harry's Magical Guardian please?"

Kragnast gave her a smile that showed a row of sharp pointed teeth before he replied.

"Why yes that is possible. We will need to have your ward present in order to enact the change legally but it's just a couple of forms and a 5-sickle fee."

"We need to do some shopping with Hagrid, would we be able to do this at another time?"

"Certainly, I can make an appointment for 9am tomorrow morning if that would be acceptable."

"We could do that, though we'd need somewhere to stay the night as it's a long way home."

"Well you could stay at The Hopping Pot in Carkitt Market, they have good rooms and the bar in much better condition than the Leaky Cauldron. Or you could use the Knight bus for a few knuts."

"Why are you being so helpful?"

"That would be because you're not legally a witch, so I'm investing in the future."

"What do you mean?"

"According to the laws of Magical Britain, all human magical children must pass their owls before their 17th birthday or have their magic bound. However, the law makes no provision for an adult coming into magic other than it being illegal to own a wand as an adult without OWLs in the wanded subjects. Also, according to the law, a witch is a female magic user that has passed their OWLs."

Sitting back, Petunia thought about that for a moment.

"Earlier you said that I had a familiar, and that it was an Aictulix? What did you mean?"

"A familiar is an animal that has a magical bond with a sentient being, this allows them to get impressions from each other. An Aictuilaxr is a creature that we documented from when we were able to delve what humans call The Dream. It's an occasionally useful pest that eats loose magic, though it's very unusual to find one on earth. We used to use them in the mailing department to clean the post before it was sent to department heads. Unfortunately, Gringotts is in the same place as the lair of a particularly dangerous predator so we are no longer able to make that journey. Incidentally, the spell that binds someone's magic is considered to be loose magic that powers itself off of the subjects magic."

"Do you have any other advice that you could give me before I go and meet Harry and Hagrid?"

"If you're willing to pay 1 Galleon, I can give you a list of places to buy his school equipment that is better value than the places recommended on his letter."

"How much is a Galleon?"

"£5, and I think you'll save at least that with the list, though some recommendations will be more expensive but better quality instead."

Thinking for a moment, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a £10 note. Smiling Kragnast takes the note and hands her back a gold coin and a sheet of parchment with a list of recommendations on it.

"Thank you for your time."

"No, thank you. I think our business will be very profitable in the future."

With that he leads her back to the Lobby where Harry is waiting on his own.

"Where's Hagrid?"

"He said that he wasn't feeling well, so he left me with the Guggus, the guard here and went to get a drink. Guggus has been very helpful while I've been waiting."

"Well say goodbye, we need to get your shopping done."

"Goodbye Guggus. May the flow of gold into your vaults be like the blood of your enemies through the streets."

"Goodbye young one, and may your knife stay sharp and strike true."

"Right, do you have your money? Good, then the first thing on the list is to get your robes ordered, for that we're going to go to Gladrags."

Looking down at the map on the back of the parchment she leads the way to start their shopping.

12. Chapter 12

As they entered Gladrags, Petunia was struck by how similar this store was to Highstreet stores like Marks & Spencer. By the entrance there was a counter, and there were changing rooms near the back along with full length mirrors. The sales assistant at the counter looked up as they came in.

"Hello, can I help you?"

"We're looking for Hogwarts robes."

"They're over in the back corner, if you need any help just let one of us know and we'll be happy to help. We also offer a tailored fitting service for 2 sickles if you want."

Petunia glances at Harry, before responding, "That would be nice. Quick question, what's the difference between shopping here and going to Madam Malkins?"

"Oh, that's easy, Malkins is a fully bespoke service, so you're paying for your clothes to be made to order. If you want them the same day it costs extra, while we get our robes made in a variety of materials from the muggle world, and then we can make adjustments to ensure they fit properly."

Petunia nodded at this and sent Harry off to buy his robes and some casual clothes while she looked at the dresses. A pleasant ½ an hour later, and Harry had a couple of sets of fitted robes, casual clothes and shoes for 10G4S [Galleons, Sickles] and Petunia had decided that she was definitely coming back here again. To top it off, they had a selection of runic comfort charms at the counter, which were a brass plate rivetted onto a piece of leather that would be discretely sewn into clothing and could provide warming and cooling, water resistance, cushioning, and self-cleaning for 10S each plus 2K [Knuts] if you wanted them to sew them in for you. Deciding that it was worth it, she bought warming, cooling, and water resistance for his robes and his coat, and a self-cleaning for his coat. They then showed him how to charge them. As they exited, they saw Hagrid wandering around Madam Malkins and Gringotts, so Petunia sent Harry off to let him know where they were.

Hagrid tried to lead them off to buy the potions supplies, but Petunia saw the wand shop was just across the Market, and so she walked straight across and in. There they found a middle aged man sitting at the counter reading a newspaper.

"Good afternoon, how can I help you?"

"We've been told that Harry needs a wand for Hogwards, and you came recommended." Petunia started.

"Should 'ave gone to Ollivander's, t'is traditional" Hagrid mumbled at the same volume as most people talk quietly.

"Well, it's a good thing you came here. We offer a bespoke service using a wide range of woods and cores to make the wand that will be the best match for you. I myself achieved my mastery under The Gregoravich that the shop is named for, and while I still have to use the name for another 3 years, I have the opportunity to make my own name after that. We freely admit that if you can get a custom wand from Ollivander's it will be a superior product to anything my I or my Master could produce. However, most people are fitted off the shelf, albeit with a long and extensive selection process and I guarantee that our wands will be a far better match than anything you could find, otherwise we'll pay the balance of an Ollivander wand. I must also warn you that we don't offer the Ministry subsidy on our wands, so you will pay the full price of the materials plus 20G for the time it takes to make the wand. It may seem like a lot, but it's a tool that you're going to be using for at least 7 years, and possibly for the rest of your life, so is it really worth saving that money to buy a tool that may never be quite the right fit?"

Petunia looked at Harry to see what he thought, and when he nodded, she responded. "I think we'll take it, do you require a deposit?"

"Not at all Ma'am, though if you do leave one I can have it ready for whenever you'd like it as long as it's after 5 tonight."

"We're going to be staying in the alley overnight, so, would we be able to picking it up at around 10:30 tomorrow morning?"

When she handed over 10G Hagrid grumbled "Well if you're not going to take me advice, I might as well make meself scarce." Then louder, "I just need to go out for a bit, can I meet you back here in 20 minutes?"

Petunia looked up at him, "Sure, if we're not here, we'll be booking a room in the Hopping Pot."

"Ok, 've not been in there."

As it turned out, he needn't have worried, as finding the wood turned out to be easy enough. Just put on a blindfold, and push a bit of magic into his hand and hey presto, grab the wood that felt warm. It took longer to learn how to push the magic into his hand than it did to find the wood. He ended up choosing Hawthorn, a wood associated with the heart, the fae folk and the outer worlds, those furthest away from earth. It was also associated with 5 Goddesses, as well as a god of the sea and the otherworld [death], which confused the wand maker as he'd never seen a boy pick a hawthorn wand before.

The core materials on the other hand. Tray after Tray were pulled out and then put to one side, even the wand makers experimental samples were gone through and nothing. They went from common to esoteric and back again, and he only had the weakest of responses to a phoenix feather. Finally the wand maker ran out of samples to try.

"I'm sorry. While we've found a perfect match for the casing, nothing I've got in stock matches you. You'd probably be better off going to Ollivander's after all this, and getting one of his off the shelf ones."

As Petunia went to gather up the money, Nixie jumped down and climbed onto the wandmakers hand.

"Nixie! Come back here, you shouldn't be doing that!"

"What's this?" the wand maker asked, feeling gingerly around his hand for the creature that he could feel but couldn't see.

"That's Nixie, it's an Aictuliaxr."

"Nixie?" Harry asked.

"I settled on the name this morning, and then that happened before I could tell you."

"Would you mind if I harvested a bit of it's fur, to see if it would make a good core for Harry?"

"Sure, if you think it might work."

A few minutes later it was confirmed that Aictuliaxr fur was a good match for Harry. Not a perfect match, but better than anything else he was likely to find.

"Well, it looks like I can make you a wand after all. Though with components like this, you should try to learn all of your spells without a wand, as I've never seen someone chose components as strongly aligned towards pure magic and growth before. I also suggest you buy a book on the old gods, so you can read up about the gods associated with Hawthorn. You won't find anything about the old ways in Flourish and Blotts, so I'd look at one of the other bookstores first."

With that they went outside and met Hagrid, who was holding a brass cage with a snowy white owl in it.

"Ah know it's late, but happy birthday, ah figured that you could do with a pet to take with you to Hogwarts. So this is just something from me."

Petunias first instinct was to complain about where it was going to sleep, but Harry's enthusiasm got there first.

"it's beautiful, does it have a name? What breed is it? What does it need to eat?"

"Slow down, slow down I canna think that fast. Right, it's a she, and she's only a year old so she doesn't have a name yet. She's a snowy owl, and she can hunt mice on her own or you can feed her raw meat or owl treats. She's been fully enchanted for post, so she can find anyone ya write to. Ya can find a book about keeping owls in Florish and Blotts."

"She's gorgeous aren't you girl." And then Harry stuck his fingers between the bars and all she did is nibble at his fingers before preening a bit. That's when she knew she'd lost the battle before she even knew there would be one.

"Ah stuck around cos I wanted to give ya ya birthday present, but I've got duties ah need to see to at Hogwarts, so if it's all right with you I'll leave you here with your aunt?"

Harry looked at Petunia who shrugged and looked at the time. "Sure, we'll get his luggage and book a room and then we can have an early dinner, thank you for guiding us around Mr Hagrid."

"I ain't no mister."

"Would you like to meet up with us later in the week for lunch, as I'd like to thank you for bringing us here and showing us around, even if we didn't go where you suggested."

"Aww, it was nothing, t'was just me job."

"It wasn't nothing, and I insist."

"OK, but only cos you insist, send your owl with a note to let me know where and when and I'll try to get away."

With that they parted ways, Harry and Petunia went to Stove and Packers for his book bag, and Harry watched his aunt looking at a fairly expensive handbag that looked fairly fashionable and had a rune locked expansion charm so that it could be used in the muggle world. He whispered to the sales assistant and got them to put it into his book bag once they rung it up. They quietly warned him that they'd deactivated the runic charm, and he'd have to activate it before the expansion charm would be available, but after that it should be fine as long as she uses the lock occasionally. However once it's activated he shouldn't put it inside another expansion charm like those on the bags otherwise bad things might happen. Finally they went to Wiseacres and bought a travel trunk that looks like a large rigid suitcase, has a pop out chest of drawers and with an expanded trunk space under the top, as well as an expanded suitcase section for access on the move.

Finally they booked a linked room for the night.

13. Chapter 13

After they'd set up Harry's trunk in the bedroom and put away his new clothes, Harry and Petunia found themselves at a table in the bar with a glass of butterbeer each. Petunia down at her watch and noticed the time.

"We've had quite the day today, would you like to eat here or go out into London and get something else?"

"Can we eat here please?"

"Sure we can, can you see any menus?"

They both looked around before Harry responded with a negative, Petunia noticed that there were a couple of women going from table to table seemingly taking orders before a paper aeroplane flew off into the back, so she raised her hand slightly when one of them looked in her direction and gained eye contact.

A minute later she finished with her table and came over.

"What can I get you guys?"

"Do you have any menus?"

"No, sorry just what we're cooking today?"

"Oh, erm, what do you have?"

"We've got our normal's. Stew with dumplings, a hog roast with bread and applesauce, or bread, cheese, and ham with pickles.

"We also managed to get some fish in fresh today, so we've also got trout with boiled potatoes and greens."

"Harry?"

Harry looked startled to have been asked "Can I have the hog roast please."

"And the stew for me."

"Ok, that'll be 15 sickles."

"Could we also get another couple of butterbeers with the food?"

"Sure, that'll bring that up to 1 Galleon."

With that money changed hands and a paper plane was sent off. Once they settled down again, Harry reached into his bag and pulled out the handbag that he'd bought his Aunt. He activated the rune at the bottom using the same technique he'd been shown for finding the wand components.

"Aunt Petunia, I bought this for you, I hope that's OK."

Petunia's heart melted and broke at the same time as she took the handbag from Harry. It melted because despite everything she'd done to him, or not done for him he was still giving her a chance. It broke because of the look of sheer vulnerability on his face that showed that even though they'd had a good week, there was still so much damage that needed to be repaired.

"I love it, thank you." She cried as she took the peach bag with dragonfly embroidery.

Nixie took that opportunity to climb down and investigate the bag. Her tentacles waving over the bag, occasionally pulling something off that she then munched on happily. Watching her do that, Petunia could help but burst out laughing, shortly followed by Harry as they realised what she was eating.

"I guess we'll need to go back and see if they can apply the charms with a runic anchor like they've used on the expansion and concealment on the expanded pocket."

With that the moment was over and the rest of the evening passed quietly before she sent Harry up to bed. Once things quietened down a bit, Petunia spent the evening after Harry went to bed chatting to one of the waitresses about her job, the magical world, and such like. It turned out that she was a muggleborn who was stuck in the magical world due to the lack of qualifications in the real world, and was unable to get a decent job due to the discrimination they faced.

Once it got late and the pubs customers started heading home Petunia headed up to her room. Opening the adjoining door, she poked her head in to check on Harry. The light filtering through the door showed him fast asleep in the bed cuddling the pillow, his owl was perched on the back of a chair and opened her eyes and looked at Petunia before turning back to Harry.

"I wish I had a camera, as he looks so peaceful there."

Softly she closes the door and gets ready for bed herself. Once she's in bed Nixie climbs onto her chest and makes a fuss until she gives her a finger to suck on.

"You know, it looks like you're putting on a bit of weight there, maybe we should limit the amount you can eat."

Nixie gave an annoyed squeak and gripped her finger possessively as she continued to suck on it.

Eventually she fell asleep and woke to the sound of Harry laughing at her. It appears that Nixie had fallen asleep on her face and her tentacles were been ruffled when she breathed out. Huffing good naturedly she extricated Nixie from her face, and placed her on the back of her head under her hair where she automatically held on. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought that she was a bit fatter than she was last night.

They both did their meditation practice together on her bed. Petunia took to it more seriously than she had been, as the meeting with Kragnast yesterday had brought home the fact that there was now a very real risk to her if she didn't.

After they'd cleaned up and eaten breakfast, they went to Gringotts for their meeting, Harry wearing some of the new clothes they bought for him yesterday.

Getting to their meeting was a simple matter, though the Teller did inform them that next time they should just go to one of the desks at the back.

When they arrived Kragnast conjured another chair for Harry to sit on, and Petunia had to catch Nixie before she munched on the spell holding the chair there.

"Ok, this meeting is about the Magical Guardianship of your ward, Harry Potter. As you are both Magical, and his Legal Guardian we don't require the presence of his current Magical Guardian. Now I told you yesterday that we needed Harry here because he has passed his first Magical maturity. That means that your magic has now stabilised, and you are capable of using intentional magic. Magically, this is your 11th birthday and may or may not coincide with the day that you were born."

"What do you mean?" questioned Petunia.

"Magical maturity is linked to the infusion of magic to the foetus, and so it is strongly correlated with whether the baby is born prematurely or late." Harry looks confused, but as it seems to make sense to his aunt he decides to try and ask about it later.

"As this is going to be a formal process, I'll be bringing in one of the other bank employees to act as a witness. During this process you'll be asked a series of questions and I will be taking note of your answers. Once we have concluded the interview you will both need to read and sign the document using a blood quill, then I will sign followed by the witness. As this is a service normally carried out in the Ministry I will be charging you a 10G fee plus an additional 10S if you would like us to file it on your behalf. Do you have any questions?"

Harry spoke up "What's a Magical Guardian?"

"A Magical guardian is the person that is responsible for teaching you about the laws and customs of the Magical world. As a child born to magical parents you are legally required to have one from birth, and they are supposed to spend sufficient time with you in order to impart this knowledge over your childhood. Muggleborn children are not required to have a Magical Guardian, though one is usually assigned once they begin Magical Schooling for the purposes of injury and discipline notifications."

"Why aren't muggleborn children required to have a Magical Guardian?"

"According to the Ministry it's because muggles have had mandatory schooling for all their children since the 19th century, and before that it was because the risk of revealing a magical person to muggle society was too likely to lead to witch hunts."

"Oh."

After a pause, Petunia joined in. "What is a blood quill?"

Reaching into a drawer in his desk he pulled out a jet black quill "This is a…" he trailed off as Petunia's eyes went slack and she started shivering while muttering "Don't make me sign it, don't make me go back to him, no, let me take them away, no no please no." Sensing Petunias fear, Nixie jumped on the desk and snatched the quill out of Kragnast's hand and sucked the enchantment out of it in one go. The black feather turning into a simple goose feather almost instantly.

A moment later Kragnast bolted to the door and bellowed

"Healer, I need a healer in here." Before returning to watch over Petunia.

Harry carefully reached out and gently put his hand on her forearm, seeing no change in her behaviour he just sat there in fear as the same thing that happened yesterday happened again today. A minute later an older goblin came in followed by a couple of guards. He held his hand up to stop the guards and carefully looked at Petunia's eyes. Coming to a decision he reached into the pouch by his side and pulled out a clear blue potion, making a gesture with his fingers the potion vanished and Petunia started to calm down. He then began to cast a series of charms at her, shook his head and cast a few more.

The healer turned to Kragnast and spoke with him in a guttural language, Harry heard the words Petunia and Aictuilaxr, before sending the guards to wait outside.

A few minutes later Petunia seemed to regain coherency and she focused on her surroundings again.

"Petunia, I'm a certified goblin healer, we've just given you a calming draft and I need to ask you a few questions."

"Uh, go on."

"Have you ever seen one of those quills before?"

Panic starts to show in her eyes before being magically suppressed. "Yes."

"Were you forced to use one?"

"Yes"

"Do you remember any details about the event?"

"I'd managed to get the children away from Vernon and we'd just been granted emergency housing and someone punched me in the gut and I found myself sitting at a desk with a man wearing Oxford robes. I felt really lightheaded and happy as I read over the piece of paper in front of me promising that I would live with Vernon, stay faithful to him and be the best wife I could be. I then picked up a black quill and signed my name at the bottom. The man opposite me then did the same and everything went dark. That was the last time I escaped."

Harry launched himself into her arms hugging her and trying to make her feel better, as while he didn't understand everything, he recognised some of what she said from the book he read last week.

"It looks like your suffering from a broken obliviation as well as mental trauma, you'll need to see a qualified mind healer, and they may also recommend that you learn occlumency in order to deal with the events and partition them in your mind. Though the healer I'm thinking of has a daughter in Hogwarts, so it might be an idea to contact her after school starts. Do you feel calm enough to carry on with your appointment, or do we need to reschedule it?"

"I'll" Petunia licks her lips "I'll be ok."

"OK, well I'm going to remain here to keep an eye on you, and I'll also act as the witness."

With that, the meeting got back on track and concluded easily, there were no complications in the paperwork because neither of them had ever seen Harry's magical guardian, though it would be raised as a black mark in the Wizarding Child Services against his old Guardian.

Finally, they both signed the document, Petunia to confirm that to the best of her knowledge everything written above was true, and Harry to confirm that he agreed with the change in Magical Guardian. A new key was generated for all of Harry's vaults (and wasn't that a surprise), and the new stipend vault was set up. Now that she had access to his vaults as Magical Guardian, she authorised payment for Kragnast to procure all of the information she would need to teach Harry in order to fulfil her duties as a Magical Guardian.

They finally got out of the bank just in time to pick up Harry's new wand, and they were persuaded to buy a belt-mounted wand holster to go with it. It had an expansion charm on it so that only the handle of the wand was visible, thus reducing the likely hood of it being broken accidentally.

Taking a break they headed over to the ice cream shop where another family was already seated. The girl had bushy hair pulled back into a puffy ponytail with a cheap hair tie, and she was talking a mile a minute about the books that she wanted to buy.

14. Chapter 14

Picking out their ice creams and a drink, Harry and Petunia headed over to the only free table in Fortescue's, just behind the girl with the bushy hair. Given how fast she was talking he wasn't surprised that table was still free as the other patrons seemed to be dealing with their own children. Just as he'd sat down at the table, and was about to start his Ice-Cream (it deserved the capital letters as it was the first time he'd had any flavour other than vanilla) his owl swooped down out of the sky and landed between him and the ice-cream and barked at him.

"Oh, come on… I'm sorry… We had a… Well I didn't know… Ok… Yes… But I was meeting… OK, I'll tell you next time I need to leave you behind… Yes, if it's possible I'll bring you along too… No you can't just ride on my shoulder, it's not something people do… I don't know… If you can find a way for me to do it out of the magical world, I'm all ears… Yes… Can I eat my Ice-Cream now?" As she hopped up onto his shoulder imperiously, he noticed that the whole store had gone quiet. The girl behind him broke the silence and suddenly everyone went back to what they were doing.

"Hi, I'm Hermione, were you really talking to her? How did you do that? What breed is she? Are you going to Hogwarts? What do you think of Diagon Alley?"

Harry looked more than a little overwhelmed, and somewhat startled that at some point during her questioning Hermione had moved to sit next to him with her own ice-cream.

"Hey honey, why don't you slow down a little, I don't think he's had time to answer your first question yet." Her father interjected, bringing her tirade of questions to a halt and causing her face to flush bright red.

Harry spoke up before she could get going again, "Hi, I'm Harry. She's my new Owl, but I've not given her a name yet as I only got her yesterday. Pleased to meet you."

At which point the conversation continued in a much more normal manner, though Hermione still seemed to be taking the scatter shot approach to interrogation.

Her parents motioned to Petunia to come and sit opposite them while they were talking.

"Hi, I'm Dan Granger, and this is my wife Emma, and we're that little ball of energy's parents. Though to be honest it's great to see her actually having a conversation with another kid rather than talking to us or reading a book."

"No problem, I'm a bit the same way with Harry, he hasn't had the… happiest life before now and I'm glad it looks like he's going to be able to make some friends at Hogwarts."

The adult conversation was some what more sedate as they covered a sanitised version of what had happened over the last week with Harry's letters, and what both parties did in the Magical world, as well as what they did in their normal lives. They covered everything from transport to Magical Guardians, and the map came out along with the goblin list of recommendations. The conversation was interrupted when Hermione came round and tugged on Emma's sleeve.

"Mummy, Mummy, can we get a bag like Harry's, as I can put my arm into it up to the shoulder, just imagine how many books I could carry around."

"They're not too expensive, they work out at around £25, though do make sure that you get a bag with runic enchantments rather than just cast, as we're going to have to go back later to get some of the charms redone on the bag that Harry bought me."

"Ok honey, we can do that later." Emma told Hermione and promptly got a vice like hug back.

The children returned to their conversation as did the adults for a while before they were interrupted again.

"Aunt Petunia."

"Yes Harry"

"Can you tell Hermione about The Dream, as she doesn't believe me."

"It can't be true as all the books say it's a fairy tale used to scare children into going to sleep!" Hermione interrupted.

"It is true, it's where Nixie found me when Harry took us there accidently, and I think it's why I'm magical now." As she was talking she placed Nixie onto Hermione's shoulder.

"But there's nothing there… Ohh… It's so furry, why can't I see it?"

"I don't know, she's perfectly visible to both Harry and I, try holding her and letting her suck on your finger."

Hermione giggles as she does just that. "That feels so funny, and it tickles. Look Mum!"

Dan shakes his head at being left out as his wife looks at her empty hand and then puts a finger on her palm.

"Hey don't do that you'll hurt her… How did you do that, you just put your finger straight through her."

Suddenly something occurred to her and she got a betrayed look on her face.

"If she came from The Dream, why do the books say it doesn't exist?"

Dan decided to field this one. "You know we've taught you about logical fallacies. Well one of those is treating speculation as fact, and it even happens in our world. Do you remember me saying the Sun wasn't allowed in our house? Do you remember why?"

"This isn't worth the paper it's printed on, all they do is make stuff up and say it's facts." She recited.

"That's right, so what have you learnt today?"

"Sometimes books lie?"

"Close enough."

Another thing occurred to her and she started crying, "Mum, Dad, can I learn to meditate as I don't want to disappear, and Harry said that he's learning to meditate so that he won't get caught in the dream."

Dan and Emma looked up at Petunia who nodded. "OK dear, we'll get you some books and you can learn."

She immediately cheered up, "Thank you, I'm going to get really really good at it, and then I'll take you into The Dream and bring you back so that you become magical like me."

Smiling indulgently they watched as she went back to their ice-cream and started talking to Harry again.

"Looks like we're going to have to visit each other sooner rather than later."

Petunia nodded, and pointed to her map. "Why don't we go to Globus Mundi Travel and see if we can find out about the Knight bus we were told about, I wanted to pop into the house-elf placement agency to find out what a house-elf is. On the way we can pop into Gringotts to make an appointment to see what your options are for Magical Guardians. I figure we can then drop those two into Whizz Hard Books, with some money and I might have time to do the rest of our shopping."

"Hey, no Nixie where did you go?"

"I've got her."

"My ice-cream glass isn't cold anymore."

"I think she ate the cooling charm."

"Oh, I should go and apologise."

"Mr, I'm sorry, but I think Nixie ate the cooling charm on your glass, I'm really sorry."

"I think we're also going to have to get you runic charms for any of the things that you've bought Hermione if she's going to be spending any time with us."

Not 5 minutes later their conversation was interrupted again.

"Aunt Petunia, Aunt Petunia, can I take Hermione to my room she wants to see my suitcase."

Smiling indulgently, she looks up at the Grangers who nodded. "Ok, go ahead, but wait there till we get there, we've got a few things to do first"

With that Harry drags Hermione off to the Hopping Pot and she can't help but laugh at seeing him behaving like a child for once. "Come on, let's go, the sooner we get done the less trouble they can get into."

Getting things done goes quite smoothly with the only wrinkle being when they visit the House-Elf placement agency, and all the available elves popped in and asked to bond with the lady with the "nice strong magic". After a couple of minutes trying to explain to a species that has learnt to weaponize puppy dog eyes, they managed to find out that house elves are a servant race, no they're not slaves they just need to live in highly magical places or to bond with a witch or wizard and share their magic. As all those places are either someone's home or somewhere like Diagon Alley and Hogwarts, they tend to choose to bond rather than overcrowd the few places that can support them.

When they finally get to the room, Dan and Emma are talked into getting Hermione a Travel Trunk, and laughing they agree and say that they can use her old trunk for books or something.

Even leaving the children in the book store doesn't quite go to plan, as they were banking on the fact that Hermione normally needs to be prised from one, instead they come back to find out that Harry dragged her to get a properly fitted wand, holster and then back to the bookshop.

Finally, two exhausted families, now linked by Magical Guardianship, have checked out of their rooms and are just flagging down the Knight bus to go home.

"I know you said that you needed to work tomorrow, if you'd like I could bring Harry round and take Hermione to get her second wand."

"I would really appreciate it if you could, I know it's not ideal but it's so hard to take time off when you're self-employed, even as Dentists."

Half an hour later Harry and Petunia were getting off the Knight bus while waving goodbye to the Grangers. Walking home they both froze as they crossed a sharp boundary that felt wrong, like fingers were crawling inside them and sinking their claws into their soul. They both nearly collapsed as there was a sudden draw on their magic and a sullen red glowing shield became visible to them. Leaning on each other they staggered to the front door and fumbled the door open and managing to get to the chairs before they collapsed.

15. Chapter 15

Petunia woke up to the phone ringing and Nixie sticking her tentacles up her nose. Sunlight streamed in through the front room window. Ugh, Vernon will want his breakfast soon. Vernon! The thought was like a lightning bolt as she bolted upright, her eyes flashing around uncomprehendingly. Eventually, her heart stopped racing and the phone stopped ringing. Looking around she saw Harry still asleep on the sofa, his owl perched on his back preening his hair. Sitting back she pulled her thoughts together and forced herself to calm down. Vernon's on holiday with Dudley. He's not due back until Saturday. I'm safe until Saturday. Glancing up at the clock, it says 7 25. It's too early for Vernon to be trying to call me. I'm OK, I'm OK.

She slowly gets up and makes her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on. A few minutes later the tea finishes steeping, and she pours a cup. She turns round to take it back to the sitting room when she promptly drops it as the doorbell goes. Clutching her hand to her chest, she makes her way to the front door and opens it.

Standing there is Emma with a concerned look on her face, Hermione just in front of her, "Hi, sorry to barge in, but after you said you'd be at ours at 9 we tried ringing a couple of times. Then we got the knight bus here because someone was worried that something had happened to you." She ruffles Hermione's hair as she says the last bit.

Gathering her wits, she responds "No, thank you for caring come in. Sorry for the mess I just woke up as I think we were attacked when we got home last night. I'd just finished making a pot of tea when you arrived if you'd like one."

"That would be lovely."

"Can I have some water please?"

"Take a seat and I'll bring them through."

It was almost too easy to slip into the polite mask that she'd built over the years, and while she was sweeping up the shards of china she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to use the meditation exercises to bring herself back to the person they met yesterday. She deliberately chose a couple of mugs for the tea, and poured a glass of water for Hermione, along with a plate of biscuits and she was done. Picking up the tray she brought it through and put it down on the coffee table. She noticed that Hermione was sitting on the sofa stroking Harry's hair with a confused expression.

"Thank you for coming to check on us, it's refreshing having someone to do that. If I'm honest I feel like I've stayed up too long for a week and I'm now crashing."

"Oh, we can do this tomorrow and I'll take Hermione out of your hair today."

"No, no trouble, I'm certainly up to a trip to Diagon Alley. I just need to get changed as I've been wearing these clothes for two days. Would you mind if keeping an eye on Harry while I have a quick shower? Also do you have the time as our clocks seem to have stopped."

"Sure, we can do that, and it's now… ten fifteen."

A quick shower and change of clothes later and Petunia felt a lot better and ready to face the world. Just as they were about to go out, she noticed a Southern Electric van on the road outside and a man in a boiler suit walking down the path next door. Predictably, he came to their house next and the doorbell rang. Petunia answered the door, polite mask falling into place.

"Hello, can I help you?"

The man flashed his ID, "We got a few calls last night about an electric surge and a power cut, we resolved the problem earlier this morning, but we're going around the affected houses to make sure your fuse boxes are still ok. Would it be OK if I came in?"

"Oh, sure. Sorry about the mess, we just got back from holiday. Vernon and Dudley decided to stay for another day so I've not had time to unpack."

"Don't worry ma'am, I'm sure I've seen worse."

"The fuse box is in the kitchen, this way."

A quick check of the fuse box and a couple of new fuses and he was off to the next house. Letting her mask drop with a visible effort, she finished getting ready to go out and wrote a note for harry that she left on the coffee table. As she walked out with Emma and Hermione she stopped dead, her jaw dropping in awe as a shimmering translucent golden shield stretched over the house and the next few houses on either side.

"Are you OK?"

"You can't see it? It's beautiful."

Emma looks at Hermione with a confused expression, who shakes her head with an equally confused expression. "No, sorry we can't."

Shaking her head she brought herself back to the present and caught up with Emma and Hermione. At the end of the road Hermione put her wand up and a moment later the knight bus arrived.

A short while later Harry woke with his face pressed into the crack between the cushions on the sofa. As he pushed himself up he felt his owl jump off of him. Feeling around he couldn't find his glasses, so he got onto the floor on his hands and knees and tried to find them. After a couple of minutes he found them neatly closed on the coffee table and put them on. After he read the note he tidied up downstairs and transferred all his clothes and Fox from his old chest of drawers to his new chest of drawers.

Hermione and Petunia came back just as he finished putting everything away, and so began what would become the routine for the rest of the month, with only a couple of modifications. The first was when Nixie gave birth on Thursday, and the second was when Vernon came home with Dudley on Saturday. They even managed to find a name that his owl approved of – Hedwig.

Harry would practice meditation with Petunia in the mornings before doing the household chores, and then spend the morning going over his schoolbooks with both of them, or going over the documents that the Goblins sent Petunia. If they were in Little Whinging Harry and Hermione would then go to the library and continue reading through the books they had on Buddhist meditation. In Crawley they would practice the lessons the goblins sent them, Hermione even persuaded Harry to practice all of them not just the ones for Men. He got quite good at doing Hermione's hair and makeup, as well as doing makeup on his own. She got quite good at doing up a cravat and the gentlemanly manners. After Nixie gave birth they met up with Hagrid for lunch in Brews and Stews and gave him one of the babies, Hermione got one of the others, and the last 4 got sold to the Goblins for 100G. On the Saturday Harry was at Hermione's house, as they figured that it would be best if he wasn't around to spoil the mood when Vernon got home.

Petunia was sitting in the armchair flipping through the local paper, her thoughts elsewhere. Hedwig and Nixie were both perched on a shoulder each. Just as she was about to turn another page, Hedwig jumped down and put a claw through the paper. Startled out of her thoughts she looked down at the paper and saw that Hedwig had put her claw through the photo of a hawk coming into land on a mans outstretched arm. The photo was part of a full page advert for the annual county fair on the bank holiday weekend, and it had a premium number to phone in order to book tickets. She phoned and booked up 7 tickets and then asked if they had the number of the Falconry people, jotting that number down she quickly phoned them too and got the details of a falconry supplies shop in London. Finally, she phoned Emma and prayed they were still at home, on the 10th ring Dan picked up.

"Hello Grangers residence."

"Hi Dan, it's Petunia."

"Oh, Petunia, how can I help you?"

"Two things, would you be able to go to the Sussex county fair with us on the bank holiday weekend?"

"Let me just check… Looks like we've got that weekend clear, so I'll pencil you in."

"Thank you. Secondly, would I be able to ask you a favour, could you take Harry to Altawash falconry on Park Avenue in London and get him outfitted with everything he needs to manage an owl?"

"Sure, what happened?"

"Hedwig saw a photo of a man receiving a bird and put her claw through the photo, and just informed me of how we can make her presence acceptable for Vernon."

"Oh, that makes sense."
"I'll pay you back when I next see you, Galleons or Pounds?"

"Let's talk about it when we meet up."

"Sure. Oh, and can you pick up a book on Falconry, something that looks suitable pretentious."

With that she hung up and let out a sigh of relief. Straightening up as though she'd just shed a full load off her back she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she sat down she looked up at the clock which was now working again, a new battery had done the trick, then down at the TV and Video player which still didn't work. It occurred to her that they hadn't even thought of turning it on all week, they'd been too busy or having too much fun to even consider it. Getting up again she went to the kitchen and took the engineers report and the claim forms that arrived during the week and placed them on the coffee table.

Seeing that she was doing better Hedwig silently winged her way out of the back window to find Harry.

When Vernon got home he wasn't best pleased that the Freak wasn't home, or that he now had a pet owl. That was until Petunia said that the stipend had been sorted out, and it worked out at £45-£50 a week depending on if they converted it to "Real Money" or not. When harry returned home with Hedwig sitting on a leather shoulder pad, a leather glove and line lure clipped to his belt and a stand and display hoop as well as a book on Falconry you could see the calculation in his eyes as he weighed up the pros of showing off that they were wealthy enough to practice falconry and acknowledging the Freak, or forcing him into his room for the duration.

As it turns out, his greed won out and he invited a prospective client over for dinner one week and had his nephew show off his falconry skills. Apparently it worked as Hedwig wasn't just tolerated, but encouraged to perch on one of the hoops in the front garden, though it did nothing for Harry or Petunia who still got beaten.

After that, Harry was out to Crawley every day before Vernon came down, and back in time to help with Dinner unless Vernon required his skills. Dudley grew jealous of the attention that Vernon was giving him, and ambushed him on the way home a couple of times. However, along with their proficiency with Meditation, Harry's love of learning was resurrected by the combined efforts Dan, Emma and Hermione; as well as Petunia when she could get away.

Getting the tickets to the show turned out to be a stroke of Genius, as Vernon got to meet the Grangers in a neutral location and decided that they were certainly his sort of people.

As with all good things, they had to come to an end, and in this case the end was rather dangerous. Two nights before they were due to send Hermione to Hogwarts, Emma woke up to the sound of Hermione's alarm clock going off. Getting up she disturbed Dan who grumbled and started sitting up.

"I just heard Hermione's alarm clock, I'm going to see what she's doing getting up at this time of night." Dan just nodded and turned the bedside light on, sitting up groggily to wait until she got back.

Emma tiptoed down the hallway using only the light from the outside streetlights to navigate the house. Hearing nothing from Hermione's bedroom, she opened the door and saw her daughter sitting on the floor in a meditation position. Hermione jumped at Emma's entry.

"What do you think you're doing young lady?"

"I just wanted to prove that I'd mastered it."

"Mastered what?"

"Making my magic quiet."

The seconds ticked by as what she'd said filtered through Emma's sleep addled mind, and suddenly the pieces came together and she screamed out "Dan". Before sitting down behind Hermione and hugging her from behind.

Forcing her voice and body language to remain calm, she crooned into Hermione's ear, "Can you show me how well you've mastered it? You're Dad's coming too, and you can show us both just what a brilliant girl you are." Hermione nodded and closed her eyes trying to get back into a calm state.

Dan heard the terrified scream from Emma and rolled out of bed and was out of the door before his brain had caught up. As he entered Hermione's room he saw Hermione and Emma start to fade away. Desperately he dived towards them, heedless of the stuff on the floor and managed to grab hold of Hermione's night dress. Lying there as his heart started to calm down, he didn't register what was happening until the land changed to an icy tundra. Seeing what Emma was doing he carefully moved himself until he was kneeling in front of her with his hands resting on her knees.

"You're doing really well honey, you're almost there. Just a little bit more."

Except it wasn't just a little bit more, the worlds changed and became more alien, they saw a forest with invisible trunks, different animals and then the rivers in the sky. But they kept speaking encouragements even as they were frozen in fear, they take small encouragement from the fact that the worlds are taking longer to change, but it doesn't do their sanity any good when they see their skin and hair starting to evaporate. Dan almost loses his composure and jerks backwards when he sees a tall humanoid creature with glowing yellow eyes all over it's body, and writhing shadows underneath it's wooden skin. Reaching forward it tears a chunk out of Emma's shoulder, and he watches as it brings it to it's mouth, seems to sniff it before consuming it. As it's reaching back Dan feels a snap, and the world collapses back into Hermione's bedroom. The suddenly appearing bed pushes him forward onto Hermione and Emma. But fortunately Hermione has fallen into a dead sleep. Emma looks into his eyes briefly before they both pass out in a pile.

16. Chapter 16

Harry was weeding the rose bushes in the front garden with Hedwig supervising from a hoop. He heard the phone ring inside and Vernon picked it up. Desperately hoping it wasn't one of the rare calls from the office he paused the weeding to listen.

"Hello, Dursley residence... Yes, she's here."

"Pet! Phone for you."

"Hello? Slow down... We'll be right there."

"Do you need me to drive you anywhere?"

"No, we'll catch the bus, it's faster."

A moment later Petunia stormed out of the house with Vernon and Dudley trailing behind.

"Come on Harry, we need to go"

Scrambling to his feet he turned to go and get his belt and wand when he heard the familiar bang of the Knight bus arriving. He also had a good look at Vernon's face and could see the disgust mixed with anger on his face.

Not even waiting to see more he turned around and sprinted to the bus. The sound of Dudley talking to his dad following like a Cassandra voice of the future.

"Mum's a freak, does that mean that I'm a freak too?"

Half and hour later a silent Harry followed a pensive Petunia. Almost a month of living more freely with her not able to over come the lifetime of conditioning he had into following her orders without question when she looked like this. She marched up to the front door of the Grangers and rang the bell.

A moment later an ashen faced and clearly shaken Dan opens the door and invites them in.

Petunia takes in his appearance and gently leads him to the sitting room.

"Harry would you be able to make a pot of tea, Chamomile if they have it. And bring Dan a mug rather than a cup."

As Harry went off to do that, Petunia rubbed circles into the back of Dan's hand while whispering reassuring statements. When Harry got back she poured Dan half a mug of tea and placed it in his hands. She watched as the warmth permeated the mug and into his hands. Then as he reflexively held it up to his chest in both hands. As she waited for him to calm down, she reflected on the fact that he wasn't used to dealing with trauma, and what did it say about her life that she was. Eventually colour started to come back into his face, and his shaking subsided, so she gently took the mug from him and handed him a fresh cup of tea.

"What happened?"

Dan took a deep breath and launched into an explanation of what he saw last night.

"Shh, it's alright, you came back and you couldn't see any sign of injury on Emma before you came down, so I'm sure they're still just sleeping it off. Here, hold Nixie, I find that stroking her is calming." She reached under her hair and replaced the empty cup of tea with Nixie in his hands.

Seeing that his Aunt had things under control here, Harry spoke up. "Is it OK if I go and check on Hermione?"

Dan looked up from Nixie, a look of wonder warring with the memories of last night, "Sure. Go ahead, you know where it is."

He found Emma and Hermione where they fell, and sat down beside them and stroked Hermione's hair, needing to touch her to reassure himself that his first friend was still here. After a while Emma started to stir, and wake up. She suddenly sat up and checked her shoulder looking around wildly making Harry jump.

Harry used the voice that he used when trying to appease Vernon when he was building up, "It's OK, Auntie's downstairs with Dan. You go, I'll stay here with Hermione."

Getting up, she looked much more together than Dan had at the door, Harry guessed it was the fact that there were other people around. The low murmur of people talking floated up the stairs, providing a comforting backdrop while he sat there stroking his friends hair.

It was late afternoon when Hermione finally woke up, and looked around. When she saw Harry but not her parents, she immediately started crying and latched on to Harry. "I didn't mean it, I killed mummy and daddy, I didn't mean to."

"Shh, shh, it's OK, they're downstairs with Aunt Petunia."

"They're dead, and it's all because of me."

"No they're not, they're downstairs."

After another cycle of self-recrimination Harry realised that nothing he could say would help, so instead he struggled to his feet and pulled Hermione downstairs with him. When they got down, he had to physically turn her head to look at her parents before she finally realised that they weren't dead. After that she flew into their arms in turn sobbing about how she didn't mean it, she didn't want to hurt them.

She finally calmed down and finished reassuring herself that her parents were OK, and that they weren't too upset with her, she still got a lecture about doing dangerous things just because she wanted to prove she could before someone else. Suddenly she perked up and squeaked "Chirpy!" and bolted for the stairs.

Harry and Petunia both looked confused. "Chirpy?" Harry asked.

"It's what she called her…", Dan waved a hand at Nixie, ", we can't call it an imaginary creature any more as I'm looking at and stroking Nixie."

She came back down a few minutes later with a mini Nixie sucking on a finger. "He was hiding under the bed, oh, and I found your socks Dad." Everyone else saw the exact moment that Hermione realised that she could actually see Chirpy and Nixie and they burst out laughing. With the offended look on Hermione's face the events of last night were put into the past.

"Aunt Petunia, you know we came here on the Knight bus?"

"Yes?"

"How did you call it?"

"Erm, I just stuck my hand up like this to call the bus" She demonstrates and they hear a Bang from outside and the voice of the conductor.

"Huh, no one here, they must have decided to apperate. Well they don't seem to have left anything behind, so next stop Ernie." Followed by another bang.

After a long silence as they look at each other, Dan breaks it. "Well, apparently that's a thing now."

"Oops."

They all start laughing and something heals in the Grangers souls.

"Well, that gives us a different option for tomorrow. You could take the Knight Bus to Kings Cross, and I could call it to bring you home."

Emma looks at Dan, "Well that would save worrying about traffic and parking."

"Now what am I going to tell Vernon."

With that, the mood turned serious again, and Harry and Hermione retreated to her room rather than remaining behind to get bored. They eventually decided that Dan would phone and "Explain the situation".

"Hello. Could I speak to Vernon?... Hi, it's Dan Granger I called this morning. No, we're alright, Hermione's going to Hogwarts with Harry, and she had an accident so we wanted a familiar face to help us out… No, nothing dangerous it's just that I don't think those in the other world would understand the problem… Yes, we were all taught how to call the bus… No it doesn't require us to be that… I'm sorry sir, I have been a dentist for 20 years, and I have never used magic I didn't even know it was real before the teacher turned up to talk to Hermione… That's quite alright… Yes… We were going to take them out for dinner as a thank you… Yes, we'll call you as they're about to leave… Crawley… OK, goodbye."

Dan lets out an exhausted sigh, OK, he bought it, we'll make sure you get home and we need to phone before you leave. I think he's going to indulge Dudley and give him a birds and the bees talk.

Harry and Petunia eventually got home at around 9, and after a quiet conversation Petunia persuaded Vernon to let her take Harry to the station as she knew how to call the bus, while he drove Dudley to Smeltings and got there in time to go through the student induction with him. She also reminded him to take the camera and take lots of photos.

She wondered if it was possible to get a magical camera so that she could get some photo's of Harry.

17. Chapter 17

Both families met up in a Costa Coffee near Kings Cross, suitcases in hand and Hedwig hooded and perched on Harry's hand. They managed to have a conversation around people walking up and admiring her and asking about Falconry.

Emma started, "OK, so one of the things we decided while you were upstairs yesterday, is that you'll be coming back to ours for Christmas if that's OK." Harry nodded vigorously and he couldn't keep the grin off of his face with that news.

"You'll both need to keep up your meditation practice, and no more testing whether you've mastered it or not. No Hermione, that doesn't mean you can ask a teacher to help you either, no more trying it until we are all comfortable we at least at the same level you were when you had your accident." She indicated the three adults, and Hermione face dropped as her mother pre-empted the wiggle room that she was going to use.

"We also remember the outburst that you had about The Dream, and what you said about it. So we don't want either of you to talk about it with the other students or teachers."

"But Mum…"

"Don't but Mum me young lady. This is important, as far as we can tell they think that wherever we went is a fairy tale, so we don't want you to find out what their version of a Mad Scientists lab is."

"OK mum", Harry of course had been trained not to argue, so he didn't even consider complaining.

With that they finished up their drinks and headed into the station. Finding the platform turned out to be easy as the Magicals appeared to have used a glowing portal. The Grangers all looked around carefully trying to work out why everyone was ignoring it. It was Petunia that put them out of their misery.

"Don't worry about it, they can't see it, it's like the brick to open the way into Diagon Alley. No one else could see it even though Harry and I could."

Understanding dawned on them, as they walked through. The portal led them out onto a platform with a steam engine on it, as they were early they all went to find a compartment to sit in. Once they found one they put their suit cases up and went back to say goodbye on the platform.

The only fly in the ointment came from Hedwig.

"What do you mean you want to go with Auntie?... What no, we're going to on the train for around 9 hours… What do you mean that's too long… No I'm not going to blindfold you again… But I want you to come with me… No I can't open the window so you can fly out… OK, but only if Aunt Petunia agrees."

"Aunt Petunia, Hedwig doesn't want to go on the train, is it OK if she goes with you and flies up later?"

Smiling at Dan and Emma. "I'm sure that will be fine, just as long as she leaves before I have to go home."

Hedwig just nods and hops over to Petunia's shoulder.

"Come on, let's go and get gawked at." Harry turns away and starts to head to the train again as the platform is starting to fill up. Hermione pulls a dark green beech hat out of her book bag and runs up behind Harry before pushing it down on his head. Harry freezes and starts shaking, so Hermione moves round in front of him.

"No, no, I didn't mean that, I just wanted to surprise you, please be ok, please be ok."

A moment later he comes back and sees Hermione in tears with the adults standing around, he enfolds her in a hug.

"I'm alright, I'm back now."

Emma offers a comforting hand on his shoulder. "OK, well I think you can handle it from here, don't forget to do your meditation and do try to make friends. Also try to keep Hermione out of her books for long enough to make friends."

With that, and one last round of hugs, which Harry tries not to stiffen for, they leave and head to Diagon Alley to do a bit of their own shopping.

Harry and Hermione head back to the compartment they found only to find a Pudgy blond boy holding a toad.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this compartment was free, I'll just go and find another one."

"No! don't worry, we don't mind company. Is that a toad?" Hermione quickly moves to put the boy at rest.

"Uh huh. He's name's Trevor and my uncle Algie got him for me."

"Cool, this is Chirpy, he's an Antixuilaxr."

"Erm, there's nothing there."

"That's because he's invisible, look touch him." Hermione shoved Chirpy into the boys hands and handed Trevor to Harry.

"Er, Hermione, I know that you like to make friends by bludgeoning people to death with words, but we've not even introduced ourselves yet."

Hermione immediately flushes bright red and promptly sits down. "Yes, well, erm. I'm Hermione Granger, first of house Granger. Pleased to meet you."

"Greetings Miss Granger, I'm Neville Longbottom, heir of house Longbottom."

"And I am Harry Potter, heir presumptive of house Potter."

The formality of the introductions seems to ground Neville and he visibly relaxes while his fingers explore Chirpy, who chirps happily when he gets a good spot. Suddenly Chirpy lifts his nose as if scenting something and darts up Neville's clothes and pulls on something before settling down to chew on his shoulder.

"Hey, where did you go?"

"He's on your shoulder, looks like he found something yummy. Did you have any charms on your clothes?"

"What!? What do you mean he's found something yummy?"

"They eat magic, I usually let him suck on my thumb when he's hungry, but he seems to like charms a lot. Nixie's like that too."

"Who's Nixie."

Harry interjects before Hermione can overshare. "We found her in Wales, and she took a shine to my Aunt, so we brought her home. Turns out she was pregnant, so we gave one to Hermione and Hagrid, and the Goblins bought the others."

"Oh, well if Hagrid has one it must be ok. My gran says he's the games keeper at Hogwarts. Still, you should warn people before you hand him over, as a lot of witches and a few wizards use cosmetic charms."

The door to the compartment opened with a bang, and Trevor tried to make a break from Harry's hands at the shock.

"Hi Neville, oh sorry!" a red headed girl started and then apologised with a squeak.

"Come in, we've still got plenty of room and it looks like you know Neville."

"Thank you, we've known Neville for what seems like forever. If we weren't around he'd be stuck in his greenhouse all the time being a wallflower."

A round of formal introductions later and Susan Bones, the redhead, and Hannah Abbot sat down in the compartment.

"You know, I don't think I've ever heard someone introduce them as being the first of their house before." Susan muses.

"Well, that's the way that the etiquette book said I was supposed to introduce myself. One mo." Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out a wizarding book on etiquette.

"Right here we are, 'Properly, witches and wizards that are new to the magical world should introduce themselves as the first of their house and take their surname as the name of their house. Failing to introduce yourself as a member of a house in a formal greeting is considered to be an insult, and should be avoided in any formal context. This rule can be relaxed in more casual environments, such as while shopping or meeting at a tea shop, but proprietary should be maintained wherever possible as politeness is the grease that keeps society moving'."

"Fascinating." Susan says with a dry voice. At that Harry nudges Hermione with an elbow.

"Ok, you've used up your book privilege for the conversation, put it away now and you're not allowed another one until we stop for a break."

Hermione pouts at him but does put the book away.

The conversation moves on from there and covers their various childhoods, expectations, why they were studying a book on etiquette in the first place. Interspersed with children looking in for Harry Potter, and then popping out before they received an answer. At which all three of the children that grew up in the magical world promise to help them practice and learn everything Harry needed to know. They're introduced to Chirpy, Harry and Hermione promise to get their guardians to buy runic versions of any charms he eats off their clothes. Finally, they move onto Meditation. Harry gently takes the book that Hermione was about to open away from them with the explanation that it's too complicated and they've been reading it for a month and still don't understand it all. He then needs to reassure the others that actually it's not that complicated to do, just some of the things that the book talks about are complicated, which leads to guiding them through the process of meditation until the sweet lady arrives.

A soft knock on the door followed by the door sliding open brings everyone out of the efforts at mediating.

"Anything from the trolly dears?"

"What would you guys recommend?" Harry says.

"The chocolate frogs are good, as are the sugar quills and cauldron cakes. The beans are an experience, so I wouldn't buy too many of those." Hannah responds.

"I like the liquorice wands." Susan says.

Harry jumps in before anyone else can "Ok, I'm paying, can we get 1 pack of Beans and 5 of everything else?"

"Certainly." The trolly lady starts handing out the sweets, and Hermione watches Chirpy jump onto one of the chocolate frogs and start nibbling on the charm.

"Can we have another 3 frogs each please, I've got this one Harry."

Harry looks surprised, but hands over his money and lets Hermione hand over hers.

Once the trolly witch moved on, Hermione hands out the chocolate frogs. "At least this way we might all get a couple before Chirpy finishes with them."

Hannah looks at Hermione curiously "How exactly are you allowed Chirpy by the way?"

"Oh, that's easy, we found a copy of the Hogwarts charter in the second-hand bookshop for 50G, I eventually persuaded Dad to buy it because we needed to know the rules for where we were going. Especially as we were learning the Etiquette anyway." She then pulled an unmarked scroll out of her bag, the seal of Hogwarts stamped on a ribbon hanging off the bottom.

"Right, here we are, 'No magical child shall be denied entry due to the nature of their bonded familiar, neither will a bonded familiar be barred from the grounds, for all know that the forceful separation of a wizard and their familiar causes great distress and can lead to the death of weaker in the bond'".

"It's weird opening a Chocolate frog and it not jumping away." Neville's irrelevant comment breaks the mood and all the children sit back laughing.

Apart from an interruption by a blond-haired boy called Malfoy who was looking for Harry and decided that Harry couldn't be harry because he looked like a muggleborn. The rest of the journey passed with jokes and laughter.

18. Chapter 18

The five-minute call for arriving at Hogsmeade caught all of the children by surprise as they were so engrossed in their conversations. Hermione was pleasantly surprised that she was able to talk to the children. Harry was relieved that he'd only needed to take a book away from here 4 times.

When they got off the train they heard Hagrid calling out for all the first years. Walking over they saw that he had his Aictuilaxr hanging burrowed in his beard, it's small tentacles waving around outside.

"Hey Hagrid. You've met Hermione. This is Susan, Hannah, and Neville."

"Hey Harry, I'm glad to see you made it. Do thank your aunt for Nibbler, though I've 'ad to 'ave Professor Babbling redo the charms on me 'ouse on account of them keep failing when Flitwick did them.

"Looks like everyone's 'ere, so everyone follow me, and mind your feet on the path, it's a bit wet."

Hagrid led all of the first years down to the edge of a lake that had a shimmering scintillating barrier crossing it at halfway.

"Right everyone, four to a boat." Once all of the first years had found a place Hagrid called forward and the boats moved away from the shore towards the barrier. As they passed through, Harry and Hermione shivered at the feeling of fingers caressing their soul, then Hogwarts came into view and all of the first years let out a gasp at the sight. The boats carried on towards a cave wreathed in ivy and passed through with a shout of "Mind your heads" from Hagrid.

Hagrid then led the children up a twisty set of stairs to the Castle. The doors open after he bangs on them with one meaty fist to reveal a stern looking witch with a severe hairdo and professional robes.

"The first years Professor McGonagall"

"This way" McGonagall says with a slight Scottish accent. She leads them to an antechamber where she tells them to tidy up while she prepares the Great Hall. Four ghosts come in, chatting about a ghost called Peeves. However, Harry and Hermione are more interested in the people that Susan and Neville introduce them to. Including Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Lavender Brown, Anthony Goldstein, and Sue Li. Draco Malfoy was pointedly ignored due to his continuous attempt to be introduced before apologising for his behaviour on the train. At some point Chirpy crawled up on top of Hermione's head in order to get a better view.

McGonagall returns and leads the students into the Great Hall before going off to one side and returning with a three-legged stool and an old hat. She places the stool on the floor at the centre of the Hall and places the hat upon it. As she steps back a tear forms on the hat and above it the cloth above it scrunches up to form eyes. It opens it's mouth as if to speak, and a teacher with wild hair and bottle glass glasses convulses once as her eyes roll up in her head and says in a strange voice that can be heard clearly throughout the Hall.

Oh you of wixen kind remember the lessons of iron

Nightmares stalk the dream once more

Beware The Mantle of Light the wearer's soul has turned to darkness

The mundane born lead the way

Hark the reborn children of Light

Ere you of wixen born wasted for the lessons of iron

The hat then says "A True prophecy has been heard and recorded on the wall of words. So mote it be!"

Whispers go around the hall with variations of "I thought she was a fraud."

The hat waits for a moment before clearing it's throat. "Well that was different, I guess I'm not going to sing tonight. So if you would begin Professor."

Professor McGonagall started to read out the names from the roll she was holding, and everything went as expected until she called Granger, Hermione. Hermione dutifully walked forward and sat down on the stool, as the hat was placed on her head she heard the hat speak from outside.

"Miss Granger, would you be so good as to remove your familiar from your head please? As I'm unable to sort you while he's there. Incidentally, he would be a Hufflepuff if he was a student"

Absolutely mortified, and blushing bright red, she lifts off the hat and moves Chirpy into her lap before putting the hat back on.

In her mind she heard "Ah, that's much better let's see."

"Please can I be Gryffindor, as I've read it's the best house and the one that Albus Dumbledore was in."

"Now hold on child, I haven't even had a chance to look yet, now let me see. Very intelligent, book smarts, not very social, you'd do very well in Ravenclaw, but with what you did yesterday I can't rightly put you anywhere but… GRYFFINDOR!" The last word was shouted out loud. With as much chutzpah as she could manage with titters still passing through the hall she made her way to the Gryffindor table to cheers.

The next interruption came while Neville was being sorted, and the doors to the Great hall opened and three figures in grey robes walked in. The sorting hat stopped and said.

"I don't care how important you think it is, I'm in the middle of the sorting. If you absolutely can't wait, the Grey Lady can show you to where you need to go." Then went back to sorting as the three figures turned around and walked out followed by a Ghost. The headmaster looked like he was absolutely desperate to follow them but stayed sitting on his throne.

Finally it was Harry's turn and he sat down on the stool.

"Hmm, what do we have here?"

"Hi, erm, hat sir, could I go to Gryffindor with my friend please?"

"Well, let me have a look and see what we see first shall we? Hmm, a good mind if slightly underused, sneaky, cunning and controlling, oooh so very loyal to your friend. But there it is, that streak of bravery a mile wide, you didn't even stop to think before putting yourself in his way did you. In that case better be Gryffindor."

The Gryffindor table exploded with cheers as Harry walked to his house table. He didn't even care, all that mattered is that he would be in the same house as his first friend.

Albus watched the sorting pensively. He wouldn't say things were going badly, but they were certainly unexpected. The protective wards on Harry's house were at full power for the first time since he placed them. It was regrettable that he'd had to force Petunia back to an unhappy marriage, but she needed to live in that house as he couldn't move the wards. It was also regrettable that he'd needed to turn her against her sister, but the prophecy needed an answer, and the only way to find it was to ensure that the two babies it could be were accessible.

Then there was the concerned floo call from Molly earlier. She hadn't being able to find Harry at the station, which while worrying at the time as Hagrid had only remembered that he was supposed to do so when he gave him the stone, however he realised that her worry was also about not making the connection with the boy who lived.

Which led onto the next worry, his mentor had asked him to look after the stone as someone had broken into their house and stolen a Gringotts letter after ransacking the place. So now he had arguably the most valuable artifact ever created, and someone trying to steal it. He daren't put up any protections that were too lethal, as it was a school full of children, and their inventiveness was only matched by their collective curiosity.

Then there were his responsibilities, the most important of which was the fact that Severus' Dark Mark still existed, this implied that Voldemort wasn't killed when his body was destroyed. His position on the ICW, and with tensions rising in Egypt recently with rumours arising of seeing hints that the gods might be moving again, blasted fairy tales, it was probably just muggles again like it was every time before. It doesn't help that Egypt has called an Emergency meeting for next week due to the disappearance of an entire family the other night. Then there was Fudge, and his constant reliance on Malfoy for advice. The man's as thick as two short planks, and as bent as a tin sickle. It's a shame that he couldn't just force him to sign a contract the same way he did to get Petunia home, but his own magic would cause any contract signed under duress to invalidate given enough time. Though he's not very strong, so maybe it would last long enough. Finally there is his Magical Guardianship, he knew he should have visited and started teaching the boy and checking up on him, but there never was the time, and Mrs Figg was just down the road, so she could see any gregarious problems and call him, which is how he knew that Petunia had left the protections there.

Ah, right the sorting has finished.

He stood up and looked out at the sea of faces.

"Good evening and welcome to our new students. Now normally I'd be enjoying this feast with you, but something urgent came up this evening, and so I will need to leave the rest of the evening in the capable hands of the Deputy Headmistress. But first a few words." He loved this bit, as it always confused the students when he called the house elves in charge of the food

"Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak" he waved his hand in a practiced manner as each elf appeared at the end of each table and summoned the food from the kitchen. He then stepped back from his throne and bowed to McGonagall and left before she could get within whispering distance.

Harry and Hermione watched as the Headmaster called out those words and a house elf appeared, they realised that no one else even reacted to their appearance, not even other mundane raised. Glancing at each other they tucked in and enjoyed the polite, but somewhat invasive questioning that came their way, especially from a family of red heads, the youngest of which Ronald Weasley out right accused Harry of stranding them on the muggle side of the station looking for him while he was nice and comfortable on the train. Apparently a sport called quidditch was the biggest thing to do at Hogwarts.

When they were feeling pleasantly full, and the house elves had cleared away the last of the plates, Professor McGonagall stood up and sent a sharp clap through the hall bringing conversation to a close. It was clear that the unexpected responsibility plus a long day had taken a toll on her when she gave the announcements

"Noo we've a' hud a guid meal, bit afore ah kin let ye gang tae kip thare ur a few announcements. Firstly kin a' th' fifth year prefects staun up. Foremaist years, thae fowk standing at yer buird wull leid ye tae yer dorm rooms whin we finish. Secondly, thare is a forest at th' lip o' th' grounds that houses dangerous creatures, a' students ur forbidden fae entering it wi'oot a warkers escort. Thirdly thare is a list o' banned products oan th' janitors door. Finally, th' third flair corridor oan th' left handside is oot o' bounds this year. If ye fin' yourselves thare please hauld yer horses fur th' stairs tae shift 'n' fin' anither wey tae yer destination.

Prefects, if ye wull. Guid nicht 'n' sweet dreams."

With that they were dismissed and followed the prefects up to the Gryffindor dorms. The boys were warned that they couldn't go up the stairs to the girls dorm without setting off an alarm and being ejected from the stairs. They were then each directed to their respective dorms.

19. Chapter 19

Morning came and Harry woke up at his normal time, getting up and dressed he went downstairs and realised that Hermione wasn't up yet. So he rushed up the stairs and found the first year dorm room. Going in he found Hermione's bed and shook her awake. Groggily Hermione woke up and stared uncomprehendingly at him.

"Why are you here?"

"To wake you up for our meditation practice."

"No, I meant, why are you here in the girls dorm."

"Well, it's where you were sleeping and so I had to come up to wake you up."

"No, gah. One mo... This is the girls dorm, how did you get up the stairs past the alarm?"

"Oh. I don't know, I just walked up the stairs."

A soft pop by the door drew their attention as a house-elf appeared and brought in Harry's suitcase and bed. It grumbled softly under its breath "Silly students can't make up their minds on what sex they are. Whatever next."

"Excuse me, what do you mean making up my mind on what sex I am"

"Eeep, Mipsy is sorry, she thought she was invisible. Brightest miss is now female, last night she was male. Hoggywarts automatically updates the registers and room allocation for your sex. Mipsy be going now." And promptly did nothing before walking across the room to send dirty washing wherever.

Harry eeped as Hermione hit her in the crotch. "Well you're definitely a girl at the moment as dad always collapsed when I did that accidentally, oh and Mipsy I thought you said you were going."

Mipsy froze and turned around slowly, "yous can still see me?"

They both nodded, "This not good, Mipsy need see head elf." A quiet pop and she disappeared.

Harry turned to Hermione and slowly began to freak out quietly. Pulling her into a hug, she muttered, "On the bright side, if you stay like this we get to share a dorm, though when we're older I'd like to try having you as a boyfriend."

She was still crying softly when the other girls started to wake up.

"What's he doing in here?" one of the girls demanded.

"Apparently Harry's magic decided to turn him into a girl so he could come to wake me up. Would one of you get a teacher, as she seems to be having trouble with what's happened."

Fay ended up being pushed out the door as she was closest and the other girls wanted the gossip.

"So why would he, she, oh this could get confusing. Anyway why would she want to wake you up?"

"We meditate every day so that we can learn to feel our magic and eventually control it. And she's used to doing it first thing with her aunt. So I guess she woke up and wanted to do it as normal except with me. Oh, and Mipsy moved her bed and chest in here earlier." Hermione indicates the new bed.

Hermione and the girls continued to talk over Harry's head while she sobs into her shoulder. Apparently they're not averse to having Harry share a dorm with them, just with having a boy share the dorm. Eventually McGonagall turns up with Fay and another adult in tow.

"Mr Potter, what are you doing in this dorm?"

McGonagall's tone of voice just made Harry start to shake and cry harder muttering "I'm a freak, I'm a freak." Over and over again.

"Professor, if you're going to be like that please leave, as you're just making her worse." Hermione snapped as Harry got worse.

"she's had a hard life and she was doing so much better before today."

"Minnie, maybe you should let me have a look and find something else to do." The other witch said.

McGonagall pursed her lips disapprovingly, but did leave.

"I'm Madam Pomfrey the schools mediwitch. I'm just going to cast some diagnostic charms and then we can talk. Do you think you could drink this potion for me."

Hermione helps coax Harry into drinking the potion over the next few minutes and all the other girls take turns hugging her and telling her she's not a freak. As the potion takes effect and Harry calms down, she gradually relaxes her hold on Hermione, now that she's aware of all they eyes on her she folds in on herself.

"I'm sorry Hermione, I shouldn't be here. You deserve a better friend than me, so I'll just go back to my dorm and this will just be a big mistake. Will it be ok if we still meditate in the mornings?"

"You, young lady, will be going precisely nowhere until I finish my initial diagnosis, after that the only place you'll be going is to the hospital wing so that I can make a proper note of all your changes. And until we know you have control over your changes, you will be sleeping right here as it's inappropriate to have a girl sleeping with boys at your age, even if it turns out you're only a girl part time." Pomfrey interjected, firmly squashing any idea that Harry was in the wrong place.

Madam Pomfrey then proceeded to run a quick set of diagnosis on her. "So far as I can tell, my scans say you are a perfectly healthy 11-year-old girl and you always have been. I can't detect any active magic on you apart from the calming draft, and you don't appear to have any obvious magical talents that would explain this. So you young lady will be following me, and I will be holding you until I've run some more detailed tests and contacted your guardian. Don't the rest of you need to get ready to go down to breakfast?"

Madam Pomfrey waits long enough for all the girls to get cleaned and dressed, though she tells them that they don't have time to do more than run a brush through their hair, before leading them down to the Entrance to the Great Hall, and taking Harry off to the infirmary.

"Right young lady hop up onto that bed there right there. You're probably the Potter that has ended up in my care the fastest after the beginning of school, though your Dad did seem to try to beat the overall record on occasion, it would normally take him a couple of days to need my attention."

She then walked to a desk at the far end of the infirmary and wrote a couple of notes.

"Lopsy" a house-elf popped in when she called

"How may Lopsy help mistress?"

"Can you take this to Minerva, and have this one sent to Harry's Magical Guardian, and get the owl to wait for a reply. When you're done can you bring some breakfast for the two of us." Lopsy took the letters and disappeared with a pop.

"Well, until I receive a reply from your Guardian, I can't run the scans I want, so I want you to tell me what happened, what you were feeling, and anything else that you think I may need to know. If you're good I'll teach you how to do this. Once we're done I'll go through all the things you should have learnt about your new body growing up." She holds her wand up and the end of it lights up, then she flicks it and the light detaches from the wand and goes up before fading out.

What follows is the most excruciating and embarrassing couple of hours in Harrys life, as Madam Pomfrey's idea of what she should have learnt is vastly more detailed than primary school was. And as she's a witch, it came with animated pictures too. Fortunately, Professor McGonagall interrupts after her first class, Harry just watches hoping that she doesn't notice her there.

"OK, how's Harry doing?"

"Well, so far as I can tell she's a perfectly healthy 11-year-old girl, and always has been. I'm still waiting for permission to do more in-depth scans from her Legal Guardian, but that could be a couple of hours yet depending on how far the owl has to go."

"I thought the Headmaster was Harry's Magical Guardian."

"Apparently not. Oh and I need you to tell the house elves not to move Miss Potters stuff, if she changes again. Until we know she's got a handle on whatever it is that caused the change, she needs to sleep in the girls dorm."

"And what's wrong with the Boy's dorm, they're only first years for Merlin's sake?"

Pomfrey glances at Harry before choosing her next words carefully. "You know that I get a few cases every year. It's not always the older girls that are caught and do you really want an 11-year-old girl where anyone can get at her?"

McGonagall sucks in air through her teeth, "No, I suppose you're right. I guess if it's a problem in a year or so's time he can have a private room."

"She Minerva, she. She's currently a girl and you should remember to treat her as such."

Taking a deep breath McGonagall turns to Harry, "Well it seems like I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for the way that I behaved earlier, and I shouldn't have shouted at you until I had all of the facts. I want you to know that you can come to see me if you have any issues"

"Maybe you should call a house meeting this evening to explain what's happened so that you get ahead of the rumours."

"I dinna really have the time."

"Maybe you should get Albus to do his own job this evening so that you can do yours."

Harry had a mischief thought and felt that it would be poetic justice for what McGonagall did this morning even if she apologised. "Mrs McGonagall, have you seen Hermione's Familiar?"

"I haven't Mr… Miss Potter, I wasn't aware of the fact she had one."

"Don't you remember the sorting hat saying it would go to Hufflepuff if it was a student?"

McGonagall thought back for a moment, "Now that you mention it, yes, I do remember something about that. I'm sorry Miss Potter, so much happened last night that it completely slipped my mind.

"That reminds me, here's your timetable, you've got Transfiguration this afternoon if you're done here and you missed Charms this morning. If you're not there I'll try and arrange for Professor Flitwick to give you a catch up lesson one evening this week as these first few lessons are very important, and I'll find time to do the same."

With that she McGonagall left.

"OK young lady, what was that about?"

"Hermione's familiar is an Aictuilaxr."

"What's one of those?"

"Have you seen Hagrid's new pet? It was in his beard last night."

"I wasn't aware that he had a new pet."

"Oh, well it's about this big, with brown fur and black stripes and furry tentacles instead of a mouth. They eat magic, and they seem to find spells really tasty."

"That sounds interesting, I'll have to see if Hagrid will let me see his one. But that doesn't explain why, wait you said it eats spells."

"Uh huh"

"Oh you little minx, thought it's about time she let her hair down." At which point she bursts out laughing.

The rest of the morning passes with her teaching Harry to cast and throw the light spell.

Albus got up in the morning after a frustrating evening. The unspeakables had gone by the time he found the wall of words, though he was surprised at just how many prophecies were written there. Then he'd needed to deal with a missive from Russia calling for an emergency meeting as they had reports of Unseelie showing up in East Russia in the night, and magical offices were closed so it made it to the local news before they could get on top of it. They're currently pushing to get it printed in the local speculative newspapers. He managed to persuade them to roll it into the same meeting that Egypt called for. By the time that finished he'd missed the school song.

He came down to check his early morning post and find out who he was the designated Magical Guardian for this year, only to find that there were no assignments. Unusual, but it would leave him with more time, which is something he was permanently short of. Nothing else needed his attention right now, so he made his way down to Breakfast as was his custom for the first school day, as it was good to be seen by the new first years, as it made him seem more present. He watched as all the Gryffindor girls came down in a group, then the boys turned up in drips and drabs. He didn't see Harry though, although his friend seemed to have her nose in a book already. Minerva went down handing out their schedules, and spoke to a couple of them, but didn't seem to be concerned by his lack. He'd catch him at lunchtime then.

Lunchtime rolled around and Harry wasn't there so he approached McGonagall. "I noticed that Harry wasn't around at breakfast, and he's not around now. Do you know where he is?"

"Aye, she's currently in the infirmary waiting for Permission to have some in-depth scans done."

There was something wrong with that sentence, but he'd look at it later. "Why wasn't I informed, I'm his magical guardian."

"I have no idea, I know that Pomfrey sent the note to her magical guardian."

The bottom fell out of his stomach as he realised that he would have been notified if he was Harry's Guardian. He took a moment too long to pull his wits back together as McGonagall wandered off to deal with a disturbance at one of the tables.

20. Chapter 20

After he'd eaten, Albus took the time to go to the infirmary to check on Harry. As he entered, he saw him sitting on one of the beds while Pomfrey happened to be missing he decided to take the opportunity to introduce himself.

"Harry my boy" as normal kids look at your face when they're addressed, now to get some surface thoughts to appear as if I know what's going on in their lives, blasted snitch.

I'm sitting at a table reading a passage about how to repair a container once it's damaged. The book says it's impossible without damaging its contents, a simple ritual is described that requires a minor blood sacrifice and allows you to move the contents from one container to another. It shows the arithmantic principles behind the ritual.

He snaps out of the memory as Harry turns his face back to face him.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I asked how your robes did that thing with the snitches. Are you alright sir?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. It uses a simple charm that you should cover the basics of in third year. If you remember, I'll show it to you once you have the required knowledge."

"Now, I heard that you'd managed to land yourself here on your first day. If that's not a record, you must be very close. Are you OK?"

"I feel OK, Madam Pomfrey is just reading the response from Aunt Petunia, she said that I'll be out of here in the next hour. I just wish I'd thought to bring a book with me as there's not a lot to do here."

"Well that's good, do remember that if you have any problems, I can always make time to see a student. Now I must be off, I hope you have a good rest of the day."

Turning, he hurries back to his office to place the memory in a pensive before it fades hoping to glean some information about where that memory came from.

Harry watched the headmaster walk out, as a brown ball shot down from his shoulder to his ankles on the robes. Madam Pomfrey comes out of her office and walks over to Harry carrying a scroll and a quill.

"Ok, I got the message from Petunia Dursley, and she gave me permission to run any diagnostics that I needed to. She also asked me to send her a copy of the results, so I'm going to set up a medical dictaquill to take notes while I'm casting. This differs from a normal dictaquill in that it writes down the results of my spells in a standard format as well as recording what I say. It does slow me down a little so you can expect to be here for the next hour. Now if you could go behind the screens over there and get changed into one of the robes you'll find there, we can begin."

"Why do I need to get changed?"

"It's standard procedure, as if you have any charms on your clothing they can interfere with the spells. The hospital robes are specifically checked to ensure that they have no magical residue that could confuse the results."

Harry went behind the screen, and for the first time came face to face with the change that his body had undergone. Though looking at the evidence he figured he should get used to thinking of himself as herself. As she stood there in shock for a while, Madam Pomfrey came round and gently placed a robe around his/her shoulders.

"It's OK, it's magic, and you'll adapt. You may even find that you're happier in this body, as you wouldn't have changed if you were completely happy in your other body. Now let's get you back on the bed and we'll see what we see."

With that she lead her back to the bed and got him situated.

What followed was a very boring, sometimes awkward, and at one time embarrassing and uncomfortable examination. She didn't know what a speculum was before this, and she decided that she could have gone a lifetime without knowing after she found out. Madam Pomfrey did apologise for needing to use a muggle device, but given this was a full diagnostic, it was needed. Finally it was over and she was allowed to change back into her uniform.

"OK, I sent a message to McGonagall while you were changing, so she should be here shortly to show you back to your dorm room. But the full medical didn't show up anything that I wouldn't expect in any other young lady your age. You're showing minor signs of nutritional deficiency, which just means you have to take a potion at breakfast and dinner, it will be added to your place setting. You also have signs of a couple of badly healed bones, which given you grew up in the muggle world is hardly surprising as they wouldn't know they needed to do anything given how fast we heal compared to muggles. As with muggleborns you'll need your inoculations, and I'll add you to the list so that you get them before the Christmas holidays, as they can leave you feeling a bit under the weather."

Harry's eyes glazed over as she was bombarded with information that she didn't really understand. Though she took away the fact that she was normal and would have to take some potions. Pomfrey stopped talking when she realised that Harry wasn't taking it all in.

A few minutes later McGonagall turned up with the first year Gryffindor girls in tow who promptly crowded around Harry's bed.

"I'm sorry Miss Potter, they saw me receive the note just before the end of class, and I couldn't persuade them to go back to the common room."

Harry looked over their heads "It's ok, did Hermione show you Chirpy yet?"

"You know, I completely forgot. It doesn't look like she has it with her, so why don't I see it later."

"It's sitting on her shoulder."

At the sceptical look she got, she added. "Hermione, why don't you hand him to the Professor." She fought hard, but only managed to get the knowing grin off her face until after McGonagall was holding Chirpy.

Minerva took an invisible creature from Hermione. Feeling it gently she could feel that it was quite small and light, covered in fur and had a tail at one end and tentacles at the other. The tentacles were quite ticklish as they examined her finger, and it felt like it was sucking on one. She saw poppy casting spells at her out of the corner of her eye, but ignored her as it was typical of her when she saw something new. Just it seemed to be getting comfortable and settled down chirping contentedly as she stroked it's back, it shot off her hand and up her sleeve. It was so light it was hard to track. She felt a pinch on the back of her neck as though someone had yanked a hair out and reached around trying to find it. The children were obviously no help as they couldn't stop laughing, she supposed she might laugh too if she saw what she was doing. Then she felt it on the top of her head, and her hair fell down around her face, quickly catching it she handed it back to Hermione.

"While that wis amusing, a'd lik' ye tae warn me neist time he's aroond as some o' us uise charms fur mair than juist daein' oor locks."

Redoing her hair with a practiced twist of her wand, she took a couple of breaths to calm down, as it was just a harmless joke.

"More seriously, you need to be careful around witches as a lot of them use a contraceptive charm rather than the potion to prevent pregnancy, and you wouldn't want to be the cause of an accidental pregnancy would you?"

All the girls, including Harry, stopped laughing as that fact percolated through their thoughts. Glancing at each other, then at Hermione's hands, they silently vowed that they would all use the potion rather than rely on the charm.

She turned round to Pomfrey "Anyhow, how's Miss Potter doing?"

"She's a perfectly healthy 11-year-old girl, she needs to take some potions for a few weeks, but other than that there's nothing that needs doing now. She can probably expect to start menses at around Easter. I couldn't detect any magical residue, so I assume it was some form of accidental magic that doesn't resolve arithmantically like your Animagus transformation, so we don't have the spells to detect it. Much like a Metamorphmagus if they've kept the same form for a while. If it happens again this year, it might be an idea to introduce her to Miss Tonks, as she may be able to give Harry some pointers on how to feel what she's doing and duplicate it. While that won't stop the unconscious morphs, it may give her conscious control."

They noticed that the girls were all quiet and turned round to see that they were hanging off their words, and Hermione was making notes.

When they stopped talking the girls all immediately cheered and hugged Harry. She wasn't sure if they were happy that they had another roommate, or whether it was the fact that they had the chance to get to know the boy-who-lived, or should that be the girl-who-lived now?

She led Harry and the girls back to the Common room, and explained on the way that the Grand staircase was one of the few static locations in the castle, so if they ever got lost they just had to follow the corridors until they found it. She managed to point Hermione at the library when she began to pester her for more details, helped by Harry putting a hand on her arm.

Once they got there she conjured a piece of parchment and a quill and was about to write a notice about a house meeting tonight when she remembered what happened in the infirmary, and borrowed a sheet from Hermione and wrote out the details of the meeting.

Harry and the rest of the girls walked in past Mrs McGonagall. Hermione made a beeline for one of the few tables while the other girls and Harry all went up to their dorm to either drop off their books, or in Harry's case, to get them. While she was there she took the opportunity to use the loo. When she came down she saw McGonagall talking to a couple of the prefects. As she stepped out into the room Ronald (call me Ron) cornered her.

"Hey mate, where were you this morning?"

"Erm, I turned into a girl and went to visit Hermione."

"What did you want to do that for, Girls are icky and they talk about fashion and stuff." He grabbed her arm and started dragging her over to a chess table. She froze at the contact and came over a bit dizzy.

"Come on, I want to play a game of chess, and I can introduce you to quidditch." His childhood training kicked in and he meekly followed Ron over to the table. Just before they got there he remembered that Ron couldn't follow her up to the girls dorm, so she yanked her arm out of his grip and bolted for the stairs. Just as he got a few steps up, the alarm went off and it turned into a slide and she slid down. Coming over dizzy again she staggered up the stairs and reached the top before scrambling to her bed and huddling into the corner. She vaguely registered Mrs McGonagall shouting for quiet and trying to find out what happened.

Hermione was distracted from her book by a kerfuffle at one of the games tables. She saw Harry pull away from Ron, and try to head up to the dorms. She was putting a bookmark in her book when the alarm to the girls dorm went off, and suddenly the room erupted in bedlam.

A couple of minutes later McGonagall managed to regain control of the room and started asking if anyone saw anything. Hermione stuck her hand up, before realising that she'd actually need to speak up to be noticed. So she got up and moved over to McGonagall, to Ron pleading ignorance.

"Mrs McGongall."

"Yes Miss Granger?"

"Harry hasn't had the best childhood, so maybe it's not what Ron did, but how he did it."

"Well?"

"It's not like I did anything, after a chat, I grabbed his arm and pulled him over to play chess. He could've pulled away at any time, but instead we get all the way over here and then he freaks."

As McGonagall pinches her nose, Hermione speaks up "I'm going to go up and see how she's doing, as I think she changed again without realising and that's why the alarms went off."

With that she leaves and dodging round people makes her way up to the dorm room to find Harry. Once she does she carefully crawls onto the bed and sits beside her. After a few minutes Harry turns round and latches onto Hermione and starts to cry and shake.

21. Chapter 21

Hermione has managed to fish her book out of her bag and has been reading it for a while propped up on her knee while stroking Harry's hair. As she turns the page Harry speaks up.

"Hold up, I've not finished that page yet."

Feeling slightly amused as she remembered the times she'd done that to her dad while he was reading the newspaper, she ruffled Harry's hair a little.

"Feeling better?"

"Lots, thank you for sitting with me."

"It's ok, you needed it and you're my friend."

"Still thanks. What's the time?"

"I'm not sure, we could go down to the common room and find out."

Lavender pipes up from the other end of the dorm where she'd been chatting with Parvati. "It's five thirty. Are you doing ok sweety?"

Harry kneels up so that she can see them. "I'm doing a lot better thanks."

Lavender and Parvati get up and sit down on the end of his bed. Hermione sighs and puts her book away.

"What happened, if you ok talking about it?" Parvati asked.

"I'm not sure, I went down and suddenly Ron was there talking to me, then he Grabbed me and I froze and felt a little dizzy before following him to, I think he wanted to play chess. I think I remembered that he can't come up these stairs, so I ran and next thing I remember Hermione is holding me."

"Oh, Hun. If you ever want us to play bodyguard just come over." Lavender quickly leans over to give Harry a hug and freezes as she sees the panicked look in his eyes.

"She wants to give you a hug, is that ok?" Hermione says softly, to which Harry nods and Lavender moves more slowly and brings him into a hug.

"I'm so confused, I feel like a him right now even though I'm here in the girls dorm."

"That's ok, you were a boy for 11 years of you life weren't you."

"Yeh, but down in the infirmary I felt like a her."

"We'll figure it out, and you're one of us now." Parvati says.

Lavender bounces off the bed and runs to her trunk to grab a book, not noticing the way that Harry momentarily freezes. She comes back with a book and lays it on the bed.

"I know what we should do, you could grow your hair out, and then we can use some of these charms to style it. Then when you feel like you're a boy you can pull it back into these styles." She turns the book around and points at a couple of drawings along with the charms needed to get that look.

"And when you feel like a girl you can use a style like, this, no this one." Parvati joins in and soon they're discussing which styles would set off her eyes.

As the discussion continues she realises that she feels like she's a girl again and that she belongs. She slowly joins in the conversation and pulls Hermione into the conversation too, though she has to put her foot down and tell Hermione that she can't borrow the book, and get can't get her parents to buy her a copy, as it's something she can learn from Lav and Pav. While they're chatting Chirpy enjoys the attention and crawls all over them, begging scritches from each of the witches there.

45 minutes later Fay pops her head in to say that she Kellah, and Melissa are going down to dinner if they want to join them. They all head down to dinner and Harry starts crying on the way because she feels like she belongs, a round of hugs from all the girls and they finally make it down to Dinner.

Feeling bold, he heads over to the Hufflepuff table and approaches Susan and Hannah. "Hey Susan, Hannah, would you like to join us for dinner?" He indicates the table where the girls are sitting.

They look at the other girls "Is it ok to sit elsewhere?"

"You know I'm not sure, let me ask. Hermione! Is it ok for people to sit at other tables?"

Hermione pulls out the charter and has a look. "Oh, yeah, it's only a problem at feasts, the first day of term, and ceremonies."

"Yeh, it's all good."

Susan and Hannah look at the other girls around the table, and at some unseen signal they all move over to the Gryffindor table with her.

Harry look around the hall now that she's not worrying about being left out, or the strange things that happened last night. The teacher that collapsed isn't there, but she can see Hagrid with Nibbler, McGonagall, and the Headmaster that she recognises. As she looks down the row of teachers, the one wearing the turban turns to talk to the teacher in black and suddenly his scar flares in pain, clutching his hand to his head he shakes the dizziness away and goes back to the conversation for a while, he doesn't see the headmasters interest zero in on him and then look over to where he had been looking. When the dessert arrives she makes her excuses and heads over to the Ravenclaw table to invite Sue Li to join them, and then heads over to the Slytherin table where Daphne and Tracey are sitting. Looking at the stiff way everyone is sitting she decides that formality is probably the way to go.

"Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis, would you care to join us at the Gryffindor table where the girls are gathering." She indicates the group of girls.

"Hey scarhead, what makes you think they would even want to join you?" Draco pipes up before they can respond.

Quailing slightly, she takes courage from the fact that she can retreat to the group behind her. "I do not believe we have been introduced, I am Miss Harry Potter, heir to the house Potter."

"But you're a boy, and if you'd been paying attention you'd know I'm Draco Malfoy."

The teacher in black comes marching down the table, McGonagall not far behind.

"Potter, what is the meaning of this? Get back to your table."

"Potter is claiming to be a girl sir."

"And what sort of codswallop is that?" the teacher says pinning Harry with his gaze. Harry can't help but think back to the exam earlier and how uncomfortable the speculum was. The teachers face pales, and McGonagall speaks up smoothly behind him.

"That would be the sort of codswallop that's true, now is there a problem here?"

"But how can that be? Harry's supposed to be the boy-who-lived" Draco pipes up.

"If Miss Potter cares to share the how with you, I'm sure she'll do so, but until then I suggest you learn to keep a civil tongue."

"He is still standing at the wrong table." The teacher in black snarls.

"But Hermione looked it up in the charter, and it says we're allowed to sit at any table except during certain times." Harry quailed.

"I don't know as it does, as I don't recall ever reading the charter, but it's easy enough to check, are you coming Severus?" McGonagall walks over to the Gryffindor table followed by a surly Severus, and Harry. Daphne and Tracey share a look and stand up to follow as do a dozen other Slytherin students including Draco.

"Miss Granger, Harry says that you've read in the charter that students are allowed to sit at any table, can you substantiate this?"

Hermione looks up from a book she'd taken out while Harry wasn't there letting out a startled gasp.

"Oh, yes, Dad found a certified copy in the second-hand bookshop, it didn't look like it had been touched in years as it was covered in dust on the top shelf, we paid 50G for it, as Dad said that it was worth paying a lot of money to know the rules. Especially as the rules are so hard to find. Right, here we are." Babbling with nervousness she pulls out the charter and unrolls it to the relevant section before handing it to McGonagall.

"How is it that a mudblood is allowed a copy of the school charter?" Draco interjects

"That will be 5 points from Slytherin for bad language. Use that word again and it will be a detention. Now let's see. Yes this does appear to be a certified copy." She waves her wand over the seal and the crest of Hogwarts is projected onto the back of the scroll.

"And it does indeed say that, in which case 5 points to Gryffindor for promoting house unity." Carefully rolling the scroll back up she hands it back to Hermione.

"Thank you for letting me look at that, though I suggest that you keep it in a safe place rather than carrying it around, it's rather valuable and you wouldn't want it to be stolen or damaged. Though I wouldn't mind a copy of it at some point."

"Oh… Harry, when Hedwig gets here, do you think she'd mind taking this home with a letter and we can get Dad to photocopy it in the office." Harry nods in agreement.

McGonagall raise her voice momentarily "Gryffindors, can I remind you that we have a house meeting in 15 minutes, so if you're still eating can I suggest you hurry up."

"Harry, I'm sorry to take you away from your friends when we've just sorted stuff out, but I'd like to introduce you to Tonks while I remember." Harry reluctantly gets up and follows McGonagall.

McGonagall tactfully takes both Harry and Tonks into a side-chamber and explains that Harry is exhibiting some Metamorph like abilities, and would she mind mentoring her for the year between her NEWT studies. Once they're finished she leads them back to the hall and then goes up to the common room.

Apart from some snarky comments about this being the first house meeting they've ever had, the meeting goes well. It's explained to the whole house that Harry is Miss Potter and is now sleeping in the girls dorm. Hermione has a familiar that is invisible and eats magic, so double check your charms everyone. There is a right way and a wrong way to ask people to play with you, and in the future asking in the wrong way will initially see points lost, and a detention if it continues after that. She also reminds people that there's a difference between pranking and bullying, and if the victim isn't laughing you've probably crossed the line. Finally, there is a curfew, and it is enforced.

It takes Harry a couple of tries to get up to the dorm, as she must have changed at some point during dinner, but finally gets to bed, and goes to sleep happy, listening to the other girls chatting in the dark, or being hissed at because they're trying to sleep. It's different, but it's good.

Life at school falls into a routine, as it becomes apparent that Binns is monotonous, Flitwick is cheerful and a good teacher, McGonagall is overworked and a good teacher, Snape is grumpy and can't teach, Pomona is motherly and an expert in her field, and Quirrell is a terrible teacher for DADA, finally the Headmaster is absent.

Flying is fun, and fears can be conquered with the right support. Ron still tries to make friends with Harry and can't seem to understand that he is now a she. Draco gives up with trying to get a rise out of Harry after she laughs at him and asks if he thinks she's suicidal wanting to be out late for a Duel, Hermione then pointed out that until a matter of months ago, magic was a fairy tale too.

A photocopy of the charter is given to each house and McGonagall, though the one in Slytherin as an accident with the fire before the less bigoted members can prevent it, the Gryffindor one has pages missing, the Ravenclaw one was never available until Flitwick put his foot down and ruled that it had to stay in the common room, finally the Hufflepuff copy has food, drink and mud stains on it making some of the more popular sections very difficult to read.

The girls circle seems to become a regular thing, and every evening most of the first-year girls sit at one of the tables and just chat, no books allowed Hermione.

Lastly, most of the first year Gryffindors spend some time meditating in order to learn how to feel their magic after they see Harry and Hermione doing it. It moved into the common room after Neville asked if they could show him how to do it again.

22. Chapter 22

Petunia came out of her meditation as the egg timer went off. Over the last month and a half she'd replaced all of the delicate electronic stuff in the upstairs of the house with clockwork equivalents. She moved her meditation upstairs after the new TV and combi Video DVD player that Vernon insisted on stopped working. Fortunately, he'd got them replaced under warranty but it was still a bad 5 weeks between the electricity going to getting the second working TV's. But now he had bragging rights in the office he'd let off her for a couple of weeks. But now she was worried for another reason. She'd found her magic a week ago, and stuff was starting to do itself around her. She'd go into the kitchen to find the kettle pouring into the tea pot with just the perfect amount of tea, or the washing up would be done. Fortunately, it had all happened while he was out at work, but she wasn't sure how long she could hide it from him.

Dan and Emma had been a godsend, as she'd been able to go round ever other evening or so and just chat, or read the books they all bought and kept at the Grangers about the history and mythology of the magical world. It was much better than the tea circle in the flower estate, their gossiping had got on her last nerve, as they were worrying about the fact that so and so down the road got home 5 minutes late last Thursday, or that thingies husband had been talking to the girl in the flower shop a bit much. Oh how she'd enjoyed shoving the fact that her nephew was heir to an old family estate, and was encouraged to take up falconry at his exclusive boarding school in Scotland.

Now that she'd finished coming out of the meditation and trusted herself to stand up without getting lightheaded, she put her hand down behind her and went to stand up, only to be pulled down by her waist length hair. Not understanding what was happening she tried a couple more times before she reached behind her and pulled her hair over her shoulder. She hadn't had hair this long since she'd had Dudley and Vernon had forced her to have it cut into a bob. Panicking she rushed down to the kitchen and grabbed the kitchen scissors that came out of the drawer and roughly cut her hair off at the shoulder into the bin. Nixie jumped off her neck and rushed into hiding as she almost got her tail.

Breathing heavily, she concentrated on her meditation exercises and managed to calm down enough to go into the front room and drink a cup of tea, that made itself while she was walking out. Slowly she brought herself under control, and the smell of magic smoke came from the TV and Video recorder. She idlily thought herself lucky that all of Dudley's replacement things were still packed up in their boxes. She also wondered if she'd blown next doors fuses again. No, she could hear the fridge in the kitchen, so next door should be ok. Resolving to do something useful she went to the library and chatted to Karen before spending a little time reading about Celtic mythology. Karen had been a godsend for helping the three of them with their research, as she was able to order in books from other libraries in the county and she had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of what books were available. Dan had jokingly started watching a boxed set of Bewitched, the 60's sitcom, for research, she and Emma privately agreed that he'd just got fed up with reading all the time after work, and left him to relax.

Arriving at the library, she chatted to Karen for a few minutes before sitting down to read the book she wanted to catch up on. It was only the sound of Karen collapsing against the filing cabinet that made her look up.

"You, you, book, hand, you, read, how?"

Petunia looked down and realised that the book she was reading was actually suspended the perfect distance in front of her, and that she didn't actually go and get it. Her hair growing must have rattled her far more than she thought. She stood up and walked around the table to Karen, the chair and barrier moving out the way without her thinking about it.

"Shh, shh, I'm still me, I've not changed who I am. I'm still the Petunia that came in with Harry, the one that you gave the leaflets about shelters to."

"B… B… How did you do that?"

"To be honest, I don't know. Harry had an accident in wales the week after we met you, and well he was born magical so his accident affected me too."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

"No! why would I do that? You're a wonderful person and you've helped me far more than you know just by being willing to talk to me. I would never hurt you."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing, why would you think that? Listen, my friends have some books from the magical community at their house. If you want you can come round and look at a couple."

"How can I trust you?"

Petunia thought for a moment. Would you trust the telephone directory?

"I guess?"

"My friends own a dental practice in Crawley, Dr & Dr Granger. I could go and buy a cup of tea from the café while you call them, would you like anything from there while I'm going?"

"Coffee and chocolate cake if they've got it."

Karen watched as Petunia left before scrambling for the phone and dialling 100 for the operator. "Hello, is there a Granger Dentists in Crawley? Yes… One… Great, do you know how long they've been there? 15 years? That's great. Yes, could you put me through please… Hi, are either of the Dr Grangers there please? It's urgent. Can you tell them it's a friend of Petunia Dursley? Yes I can wait. Oh thank god you're real. I saw Petunia do stuff. Yes. Yes. That sort of stuff, she said that you have some books? No, not really I'm freaking out here. She's just gone to the café. OK, I'll tell her."

She pulled out a pad of paper and drew a line down the middle. "Ok Karen, think logically, Occam's razor, you learnt this in University. Left hand side, this is real, right hand side this is fake."

She then spent a few minutes going over the last 15 minutes in a few different ways.

"Fuck, it's real. God must have a really twisted sense of humour to grant me that particular wish."

A few tries later and the paper was put through the shredder in the back. Thank you god for council bureaucracy.

A short while later Petunia came back in with a couple of Styrofoam cups and a brown bag.

"Sorry it took so long, I took a few minutes in the park to try and get some more control before I bought the drinks."

"Thanks." She could almost pretend that it was like normal, except apart from her hair Petunia looked like an airbrushed model.

"So?"

"I believe you, Emma said, and I quote 'Bring her around any time after we get home'"

"Ok, I can do that. Could I use your phone?"

"Go ahead, dial 9 for an outside line."

"Hi, could I speak with Vernon please? Yes, it's his wife. Hi Vernon I'm just popping down to Crawley, I'll be back around 8. Could you grab some fish and chips on your way home? Great, thanks. Love you too.

"Ok, they'll get home around 6, so if you're ok with leaving at 5:30 we've got plenty of time. Be warned, we're going to be taking a bus, a very strange bus, so try not to look too shocked until we're sitting down."

"…"

Being that there wasn't much else she could really say at this point, and she was sure that if she phoned the police she'd be treated like a crackpot, Karen went back to her job. Time passed and the occasional customer came and went, the children's library filled when the school let out, and then it was time to close up. Karen realised that she was dragging things out, but she did absolutely everything she needed to do on her close up routine, Matt would be in to open up as normal, so she left a note to say that she'd gone to the Grangers in Crawley just in case something happened and she didn't make it in tomorrow. Finally, she turned the key and locked the door.

Breathing deeply, she turned to Petunia. "I guess this is it then, down the rabbit hole."

"Yep, as this is a populated area you need to take my hand otherwise you won't be able to see the bus."

Karen took her hand as Petunia walked to the kurb and raised her hand. An ear-splitting bang echoed around the Highstreet, but none of the pedestrians even paused. She forced her self not to goggle as a bright purple 3 decker bus appeared out of nowhere.

"Hi Stan, 2 to Whitehall Dr, Ilfield West, Crawley please. Keep the change." Karen watched her hand over a couple of gold coins.

Petunia then lead them over to a couple of armchairs. "You might want to sit down quickly and hold on tight, this is going to be a little rough."

Karen staggered off the bus. As it disappeared with a bang she turned to Petunia. "A little rough? Try fucking terrifying, I've been on tamer roller-coasters."

Petunia shrugs, "You get used to it. Anyway we're here."

"I thought you said they were Dentist!"

"They are I guess, in the same way that a brain surgeon is a doctor. They gave me a free check-up a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed like a normal dentist. I know they've got a surgery on the bottom floor, and they do some sort of dental surgery there."

As they walked up Karen watched as the front door unlocked and opened itself as Petunia seemed to be distracted talking to her, so she cleared her throat and nodded her head towards the door.

"Oh blast, sorry."

"Petunia, is that you?" a woman's voice comes from inside.

"Yes, I seem to be having control problems."

Emma comes into the front hallway and stops dead. "You look good, is that a new hair cut?" she squeaks.

"Yeah, I had to cut it off as it suddenly grew to my waist, I hope Vernon doesn't notice it."

"I don't think he's going to even look at your hair. Maybe you should stay here tonight."

"You know I can't."

"I know, I don't have to like it, but I know." Emma looks defeated at the last bit.

"Oh, but I'm been rude, this is Karen she's the local Librarian, and I kinda screwed up when I went out to clear my head and she saw stuff happen around me."

"Come in, come in, I'm Emma, Dan's just upstairs grabbing the trunk we're using for book storage." She led Petunia and Karen into a well-appointed study cum library.

"Please, take a seat"

The next hour and a half was a whirlwind of amazing, terrifying, and engrossing information being dumped on Karen. She felt that her head was spinning, and she'd even been allowed to hold an 800-year-old scroll that they said was a certified copy of the charter for the school their children went to. Finally, Petunia had to leave, and Karen opted to stay, as this was like a dream come true. As it was getting late, they got onto the subject of fey and iron and the frustrations they were having finding out what cold iron even was.

To which Karen replied, "what you mean like cold-pressed bog-iron or star iron?"

Dan got up and kissed her on the forehead. "How did you even know about that?"

"There were a couple of books in the archaeology section where I used to work, and it was in the blurb."

Dan and Emma made sure that Karen got home ok on the knight bus.

Petunia got home and when she opened the front door she knew something was wrong, the smell of whiskey in the air told her that tonight was going to be a bad night. Closing the door softly she prayed that Vernon would already be passed out in the armchair.

"Ya know, you're a freak, but you're a beautiful freak, and I'm going to enjoy showing you what happens to freaks in this hause." Vernon's slurred voice behind her made her freeze, as he staggered up behind her. She screamed as he grabbed her hair and dragged her upstairs, and she screamed and sobbed and begged as he broke her again and again. He eventually passed out, his hand still tangled in her hair as his heavy bulk pinned her face down on the bed.

Sobbing, Petunia was denied the sweet release of oblivion even as his fetid breath passed over her face. The tick of the mechanical clock taunting her as it marked the inexorable march of time while she was helpless, she had no idea what time it was as she was sure she'd blacked out a couple of times, and now she couldn't black out as her pelvis hurt too much where he was lying on it.

She had magic, she could have thrown him across the room and he'd have been helpless, but she froze, and now she didn't have the energy to do anything but stay alive.

A red light started to suffuse the room as the world moved into The Dream, all she could think about was if Nixie was ok, and who was going to look after her. A lizard ran over her hand and stopped a couple of feet in front of her, it's tongue flickered out tasting the air. A forest starts to come into focus, the rain is pouring down in thick heavy drops.

One lands in Vernon's ear and he twitches tearing an agonised scream from her throat. She's going to die, and there's not even going to be a body for anyone to find. More rain and Vernon grunts, the cold water starting to break through his drunken stupor. She doesn't know if she wants him to wake up and end it quickly or stay asleep so that she can dissolve later.

The world moves to an icy tundra, and the sudden cold makes him roll over, consciousness returning quickly as he opens his eyes. Desperately she pulls herself away from him trying to get away while he's still not aware of his surroundings, she looks back and she's a couple of arm lengths away as he turns his piggy eyes towards her, pure hate and death staring out of the pitiless depths, all signs of drunkenness washed away by the cold.

She can see the wisps of the next world and she desperately pulls herself forward trying to stay far enough ahead of him that he can't catch her before the dream does, as the uncertain death of the dream is far better than the promise in his eyes, his lumbering footsteps echo loudly in her ears as she chances another look back and sees his groggy form staggering towards her.

The trees are now visible through him but he's catching up fast! She turns away again and tries to drag herself faster. Something lands on her shoulder and she screams in shock and panic and then a striped cat steps off and pokes her face. It opens it's mouth and yowls at her. She doesn't move, she's too exhausted, so it turns around and lays it's 3 tails on her face before dropping its head on its paws. It looks up in surprise as world changes again, but Petunia doesn't notice, as she's finally away, she finally safe, and her pelvis doesn't hurt so much. As her consciousness fades the cat gets up and sniffs and then turns around and sniffs her face before jumping 6 feet in the air and disappearing in a random direction when Petunias body coalesces and disappears.

23. Chapter 23

Petunia is surprised when she wakes up to the sun streaming over the horizon staining the sky a brilliant red. Her night dress is drenched with dew, and she aches all over. The sound of birds in the air are like a balm to her soul. Pushing herself up, she collapses as the pain in her hips tell her that they're still badly damaged. Perching on her elbows she sees a stone wall a short way off. Determined to see Harry again, she painfully drags her way over to the wall. Pulling herself up onto the wall, she cries in relief when she sees a country lane on the other side. Raising her hand she prays that she can call the knight bus, the signature bang echoes through her mind as she loses the battle with consciousness.

Stan Turnpike is expecting an easy morning shift as normal as he was on last night too, but Angie has come down with flu, and even with pepper ups, it's bad for business if your customers get sick. Ernie takes off as they get a signal from the detection net that someone is calling for the bus. A few minutes later they're on a country road in Dorset with not a house in sight, no obvious passengers either.

Sighing at one of the more annoying aspects of the job he gets down and checks to see if they've fallen over, though it's a bit early for drinking. Finding no one, he gets back on the bus and is about to tell Ernie to go when he sees a woman in a sodden gown lying over the wall on the other side.

"Ernie, wait up." He levitates the woman off the wall and round to the bus. Seeing the dried blood running down her leg he starts to panic.

"We need to get her to St Mungo's, let me get her into a bed first though."

He then pulls the lever to turn the bus back into the night configuration and levitates her into a hammock. As he positions her he gets a good look at her face.

"Blimey, it's Petunia Dursley. Ernie step on it."

Half an hour later they were squeezing through london traffic and arrived outside St Mungo's. Getting off he walks up to the shop mannequin "It's Stan Turnpike from the Knight Bus, I've got an unconscious witch onboard and I need an hand getting her off. It looks like she's hurt."

A few people came out of the door, and a couple of them immediately cast some notice me not charms on the pavement, while the last went on board to get Petunia. They stiffened her and levitated her into the hospital, Stan trailing behind. The duty Auror pulled him to one side to get the details of the story.

"Yeah, we picked her up in the middle of Dorset, right tiny road that was hella trouble if we met a tractor going the other way. Anyway, we got a weak signal, and when we arrive there was no one there. So we was about to leave and I saw her draped over the wall on the other side of the road. I stop Ernie from leaving and levitate her into a hammock."

"So is she someone you know?"

"Yeah, she looks like a younger version of Petunia Dursley, we started picking her up in August, I remember because she travelled with Harry Potter. I think he called her his Aunt.

"Anyways since then she's been travelling to a place in Crawley quite often, started out it was always Harry with his wand, and then she started doing on her own. Thinking about it, I've never seen her with a wand either."

He then starts rambling on about the people he's seen her with, and going off at tangents until he was just rambling. The Auror eventually cut him off and said that they had enough information.

Healer Williams was an experienced trauma witch, and she thought she was ready for everything. But this horrified her. She'd seen worse from some of those unfortunate witches that were forced to work Knockturn Alley at night, but this was the first time she'd seen it without an ounce of magic involved. They got her onto a bed and she was running the injury diagnostics. Broken Pelvis, 3 cracked ribs, bruised kidneys, contusions all over her body, and vaginal bruising consistent with.

"Hold everything, she's not dying and we need to get Aurors here to do an official diagnostic. It looks like she's a rape victim. So short term potions only. Witches only from here on out, we don't want her magic lashing out if she mistakes one of the mediwizards for her rapist."

Amelia Bones was a very stressed witch. She'd inherited a shambles of a department from Crouch, and then the idiots in charge had slashed their budget 'because they were no longer at war'. The imbeciles completely forgot that they didn't get an increase in budget for the war, so what they were doing is cutting into the running costs. As it was she had just enough staff to cover all of the jobs, as long as no one was injured or got sick.

Then the call came in from St Mungo's and of course it has to come to her as she's the senior witch on duty today and it's a rape case. Who else is on? Hammer, she saw her in the office.

"Hammer, we've got a rape at St Mungo's, one Petunia Dursley, grab what details we have and then take another witch and get over there."

With that she went back to trying to work out how to staff everything so that there were enough Aurors on soft duty for events like this, while also making sure all of the positions that needed to be staffed around the clock were staffed. I suppose that one good thing about the ancient laws surrounding the witching hour are useful for ensuring that she only has to staff 23 hours of the day rather than 24. Any way I need at least 5 people on the Monitor at all times, though I could probably train a few people up from other departments, they just need to be able to read apparition co-ordinates, and magnitudes. That leaves 4 Aurors needed. She looked up at a knock on her office door.

Hammer entered and handed her a folder, "You're going to want to be in on this one. She's the aunt and magical guardian for Harry Potter. Aurors responded to an accidental magic episode in Wales in August, and assumed that she was a squib as there were no wands. But a couple of days later she takes over the Guardianship of Mr Potter. This suggests that she's a full magical, though we have no Apparition licence on record. And then there's this."

She hands Amelia a blood signed contract.

"Merlin, what witch would willingly sign something like this. So what do you think? She was 'home schooled' and sold to this sick fuck after being forced to sign the contract, and this last event was enough for her magic to break the contract?"

"Another thought, if she's Harry's Aunt she'd have grown up during the war. Maybe her magic was bound before she appeared on our radar and the surge we saw in August was her bindings breaking trying to save Harry."

"That's almost worse. But we're speculating and wasting time, so let's go; and someone send a message to the school to let Harry know something's happened."

They apparated over to St Mungo's and got a debrief from the duty Auror, yet another post she needed to keep filled in the future.

"Thank you, get back to the office and send someone to take over. I need you to contact this… Dan and Emma Granger, they might have more information about Dursleys living conditions. If they do, see what you can get out of them, and if you get an address take a couple over there to have a look. Watch out for the weird wards though. If the bastard's there, arrest him and throw him in a cell."

With that they found their way to the ward that Petunia had been placed in.

"How is she?"

"Bad, initial scans show her magic is almost depleted, it's a miracle that she even managed to summon the Knight bus, especially without a wand."

"Ok, I'm authorising a full array of criminal diagnostics, can you also check for any lingering bindings as our current theory is that her magic was bound and she forcefully released it during an event in August."

An hour passed as the Mediwitch went through the diagnostics and catalogued around 12 years of abuse, 1 successful pregnancy, multiple miscarriages due to uterine adhesions, several broken bones, and a history of internal damage consistent with punches. It would make for grim reading, and it was worse for those who had to listen to the clinical interpretations of the results. She had no signs of any bonds, obliviations, or charms applied to her, so they were at a loss until they were able to question her. Which wasn't going to be any time soon, as the healers were keeping her asleep until her magic levels recovered somewhat. If they woke her up now, she'd just be in pain as none of their treatments could be used until her magic could sustain them. It's why most squibs left the magical world, or were kicked out. She couldn't imagine living in a world where you could see what was there but not participate.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts she returned to the matter at hand. "Ok, there's not much more we can do now, let's get back to the office, and we'll see what comes back from the Grangers. When do you think she'll wake up?"

"Probably either this evening or tomorrow morning."

"Do you think it would be an idea to bring Harry down so that he's here when she wakes?"

"Yes, having a friendly face can only help."

"OK, I'll go and get him this afternoon. It's a shame that it's Halloween, I always enjoyed the feast in the evening."

24. Chapter 24

Dan woke up groggily to the insistent sound of someone pounding on the door. Why some people refused to use the doorbell he never understood. Glancing at the clock he noticed that it was only 7 50 in the morning, 10 minutes before their alarm would normally go off. Slipping out of bed, Emma groaned and started to wake up as the mattress shifted, he grabbed a dressing gown and shuffled down to the front door. Opening it a crack he saw two men in robes.

"Good morning sir, are you Mr Granger?"

"Speaking."

"I'm Auror Ruperts, and this is Auror Phelps, may we come in?"

"Aurors?"

"Magical Police."

Waking up as though he'd dumped his face in cold water as he couldn't think of any other reason for them to be there, he automatically responded: "Is Hermione OK?"

"We're not here about Hermione, a Petunia Dursley was admitted to St Mungo's at around 7:30 this morning and the bus driver said that she'd been visiting you frequently."

"Well, you better come in." He opened the door to let them in, dreading the answer to the question of what happened.

As he's walking past the stairs he calls up "Emma, the magical police are here."

He then leads them into the sitting-room he'd have preferred the study, but stuff was still left out from last night. "Please, take a seat, can I get you anything?"

"No, we're fine thank you."

"Sorry about this, we've had problems with magic blowing up electronics, so I don't want to risk anything." Dan unplugs the TV and HiFi from the wall as he says this.

The Aurors look at each other, "Your daughter must be a very powerful witch then."

"Oh, she is" but I'm more worried about Emma and myself.

5 minutes later Emma came downstairs and into the sitting room wearing a nightdress and a dressing gown.

"Well, we're all here, what did you want to know?"

"Petunia was found by Stan from the Knight Bus, and she was in a bad way. She was admitted to St Mungo's about half an hour ago. Initial scans showed that she'd been sexually assaulted and beaten badly enough to…" Auror Phelps trailed off as Emma's hair started to float around her head and things in the room started to rise up too.

"Emma, Emma, you need to calm down. She's safe now so getting angry isn't going to solve anything." Dan puts his hand on his wife's hand as he can feel her magic struggling to go out of control.

Roberts panics and fires out a stunner, knocking Emma out and everything comes crashing to the floor. Seeing the spell hit her, Dan spins round and his magic lashes out punching Roberts and his chair through the wall behind him. As he rounds on Phelps, Phelps puts his hands up to show that they're empty and he's not a threat.

"Mr Granger, Mr Granger, she's fine it was just a stunner and she's unconscious." His reassuring tone and placating gestures bring Dan down from the towering rage he was in. Then three pops were heard through the hole in the wall.

"It's ok. It's ok, they just detected the surge in magic, and it's a standard response." Before calling out the hole "Auror Phelps here, everything's under control, we just delivered some bad news"

"Dan, I've got a calming draft here, and it will force your emotions under control, I'd like you to take it so that we're no longer in danger."

Dan stared at him for a long moment still angry about his wife being attacked in their own home.

"Just put it on the table."

Carefully Phelps pulls a small vial out of a pouch at his side and places it on the table.

Dan looks at it, then carefully picks it up and takes the top off. Sniffing it out of reflex he takes a chance and downs it. Almost immediately his anger recedes and he's able to think clearly.

"I'm sorry about that, I couldn't think after he attacked my wife."

"Completely understandable sir, if you don't mind I'm going to banish the same potion into your wife's stomach and then wake her up."

"OK."

Phelps does that and with exaggerated motions and calling out the spell, he rennervates Emma.

"Ugh, why do I feel flat?"

Dan hugs her shoulder still looking towards Phelps, "We've just been given calming potions love, we were getting a bit out of control."

Seeing that things were back under control Phelps went over to the hole to check in on the squad that turned up and spoke with the Aurors outside. He came back in and walked over to Dan and Emma.

"We're going to need to send Auror Roberts to St Mungo's as he broke his shoulder and bruised his neck. Would you mind if I brought one of the other Aurors in?"

Dan sighed and shared a look with Emma. "I guess that will be fine, we should probably move to another room where it's not so messy."

"If you show me where it is, we'll get this fixed up and then I'll come and join you."

"Do you mind if we watch?"

"No, go ahead."

With that they start using magic to repair the wall and furniture.

"Does this use magic to keep it together when you're done? As Petunia's familiar eats spells that aren't anchored to runes."

Emma gasps and clasps her hands to her mouth, "Oh no! I know what happened now, we didn't see Nixie with her last night, that means that she was at home with Vernon and nothing else to eat." Dan's face goes ashen as the implication of that goes through his head, thinking back to the fact that he'd been obliviated in Wales when Petunia used magic for the first time.

Phelps says to another Auror quietly "You know, when we arrived I thought that Hermione was a muggleborn, as they didn't recognise the term Auror, and now." He curses mentally as it becomes apparent it wasn't quietly enough as he sees Dan and Emma's shoulders slump.

"You weren't actually wrong when you thought that." Dan replies softly.

Both Aurors turn towards Dan at that. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, shit I didn't mean to say that." Emma punches Dan on the arm.

"Language."

Smiling sheepishly at her Dan continues "You know that you think of The Dream as a fairy tale? Well it's not and our daughter pulled us along to prove it. And I guess when people with no magic go there we get magic."

Phelps curses under his breath. "This sounds completely unbelievable. I'm just going to try and catch Bones at St Mungo's and ask her to come here and bring some veratasium, it's a truth potion that makes you incapable of outright lying, we sometimes use it with hostile suspects, though it's considered Hearsay in the court, as it only means that what you said is the truth as you know it, not that it's the whole truth or that you're right."

With that he disappears with a pop, and knocks on the front door a few minutes later.

Dan gets up and goes to answer the door again. "For future reference, if you're visiting a non-magical house, we normally have a doorbell, which is more audible than knocking on the door." Dan demonstrates by ringing the doorbell.

I'll go make us some tea while we wait, and then we'll fill you in on what we know. I'll also call the Surgery and let them know that we've had a family emergency and we won't be in this morning.

Vernon wakes up shivering in a dark cave. He's not sure where that freak of a wife went, but he survived. Next time he gets his hands on her she won't be as lucky. His throat burning due to lack of drink and the alcohol he drank, drives him to crawl out of the cave. Looking around he sees snow collected on the rocky surfaces around. Gathering handfuls of it, he greedily gobbles it down, allowing some of it to melt in his mouth to soothe his throat. He fights through the ice-cream headache until he's eaten three double handfuls of snow.

Clumsily he climbs up on top of the rock that formed the mouth of the cave he hid in and cranes his neck trying to find any sign of civilisation. The only thing that stands out is a stand of trees of in the distance, apart from that it's rolling tundra as far as the eye can see, with the occasional snow-covered lump. Not having any better idea, he stumbles off on numb bare feet towards the trees, his bulk doing more to protect him from the cold than his thin pyjama shirt. The sharp stones cut into his feet leaving a trail of blood behind him.

He was within spitting distance of the trees when he heard a snuffling noise behind him. Looking back he saw a huge white bear with a spiral horn coming out of it's nose. Taking the better part of valour he ran as best as a morbidly obese man can towards the trees. His sudden movement caught the eye of the bear behind him, and it roared and chased after him. Making it to the tree line mere seconds before the bear, he grabbed onto a branch and tried to climb a tree. The first branch snapped under his weight, the second held but he couldn't pull himself up and his feet slipped off the bark. He felt a sharp pain in his back as he had a moment to look down as the end of a horn poked out of his stomach before it glowed a pale orange and all of his muscles seized up and held him in the pose he was holding. The horn withdrew and warm blood ran down his leg almost burning hot as it reached his frozen foot. He heard the bear rear up and then felt it claw against his head. He heard a loud crack as his head lolled to one side as his body went numb. Before his vision went dark, he saw a splash of blood in front of him as he started swinging from the branch, and the bear pushed past him to get at the parts that had fallen to the floor, leaving a streak of blood on its back.

25. Chapter 25

Amelia walked out to the Apparition point with Hammer, as she got to the welcome desk the welcome witch called out her name and handed her a note

Possible illegal witch and wizard at the Grangers.

Bring veratasium.

Phelps.

The apparition co-ordinates were scribbled at the bottom of the note. Wondering if it would be worth taking a pain-relieving potion now, she turned back to the ward to let them know that she was going to a muggle address, and to send an owl. She'd check back in on the way back to the office. She then gave Hammer the note and told her to get the veratasium and meet her there.

She walked up a well-appointed footpath to the front door and rang the doorbell. A moment later the door opened and a man wearing a dressing gown looked her up and down and then invited her in.

"Good morning, Hammer will be here shortly with the veratasium, would you be able fill me in on why it's needed?"

Phelps first introduces Dan and Emma, then continues with. "If we're starting at the beginning, you'll need to read a letter first"

Wordlessly Dan hands over the letter Harry received on his birthday. Amelia starts to read and the further she gets the more her eyebrows try to merge with her hairline.

"OK, suppose this is true, what does it have to do with why I'm here?"

Dan quips, "Well I suppose that's my cue then. While non-magicals are unaffected by The Dream and are unable to interact with it on their own. Magicals can carry them into the dream. We were taken so far that our bodies started to evaporate and there literal rivers of magic in the sky. First Petunia accidently while she was trying to bring Harry out of a nightmare. We hitched a ride with my overachieving daughter 2 nights before school began. And despite what happened, I am very much glad that she did it here rather than as school where anyone that tried to help would have just been putting more people in danger. Something about being somewhere so magical seems to have infused us with magic for want of a better word. Our bodies then adapt to having that much magic and start to use it the same way you do."

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of Auror Hammer and the veratasium. A quick introduction and they were back in the study, which was looking crowded now that there were more people than chairs.

"OK, Hammond, can you set up the dictaquill, while I go over what will happen?

"I am going to dose one of you with three drops of Veratasium, we will then ask some control questions, and one test question. Once that's done I'm going to ask you how you to describe how you got your magic. We're recording this, as it illegal to grow up as a witch or wizard and not attend an educational establishment, the punishment of which is having your magic bound and your wand if you have one snapped.

"Unfortunately, if you don't do it voluntarily now I will be obliged to arrest you, and then ask both of you separately in a holding cell."

Dan then decided that he was going to do it despite Emma's protest that she's just as capable as he is. The questioning goes as expected, though the description of the creature that attacked them before Hermione managed to get control sent eyebrows skywards.

"I don't think I'm the only one here that is going to need to take some time to absorb this. You said that Hermione had been practicing meditating. Why exactly was she doing that?"

"We're not sure of the mechanics of it, but it's to be able to force her magic into a sleep like state rather than an active state. Meaning that if she woke up during The Dream, she could rescue herself."

"I don't like this, the only way to confirm the existence of this dream is to risk our lives, and if we screw up we've lost someone if it's true, and nothing happens if it's not. But your testimony gives enough reason to think that we should be treating it as real.

However, I can confirm that we have no grounds to arrest you for failing to go through magical education, as our laws aren't designed for people to just become magical."

Emma interjects her thoughts, "There is one other way to verify that it's true enough, even if the nature of it isn't known."

"Go on."

"Verify a that a group of non-magicals are non-magical. Then if there are any magicals that are willing to take the risk, and they succeed with the non-magical, the fact that the non-magical is now magical will mean that there is verifiably something happening during that period of time."

"Great, I guess I need to get the unspeakables involved."

"Who are the unspeakables?"

"They're the research arm of the government."

"Why are they called the unspeakables?"

"Because no one really knows what they do, just that they exist."

"Then no, we've seen what secret labs do in the non-magical world, and there's no way we'd be willing to let anyone be subject to a magical version when you've got the ability to erase memories at will."

A tapping at the window heralded the arrival of an owl.

Dan and Emma look around confused.

"It's probably for me." Amelia confesses

Dan gets up and opens the window, the owl hops in and flies over to Amelia, who takes the note off it's leg and reads it before paling.

"All hands on deck everyone, we've got a breach of the Statute in Little Whinging and containment methods aren't working."

Dan and Emma look at each other "Nixie!"

At that Phelps puts his head in his hands and groans.

"Phelps, is there something I needed to know when I got here?"

"Yes Ma'am, Petunia has a familiar that is invisible and eats magic. It finds charms especially tasty."

Amelia collapses on the chair and lets out a sob before pulling herself together again.

"Why didn't you… It doesn't matter. Dan, Emma can either of you help capture Nixie so that we can resolve this quickly?"

Before Dan can volunteer Emma says, "Just let me put on a tracksuit and grab a coat and I'll be with you."

"OK, I'll take you, everyone else, get out there and try and tempt it away from the muggles."

Once Aurors that know what's going on arrive, the situation is very quickly contained, though more people need to be obliviated than they were planning on, and some police officers have to be persuaded that it's a hoax. Something that should have been a simple operation turned into a full-blown emergency because someone left out relevant information because it sounded ridiculous. Emma was able to locate Nixie and take charge of her, and Amelia escorted her back her home.

26. Chapter 26

Once Amelia gets back with Emma, she asks if she can come back in to talk to them.

As they'd already called off for the morning Emma agrees. Over breakfast she outlines the responsibilities that they will be expected to uphold as members of the magical world. These are things that span all magical beings, not just witches and wizards. The most important one, and the one that has the most serious penalties for an egregious breach of the law, is the Statute of Secrecy. She goes through an overview of the history of it, and how the Christian church made it necessary.

"We had one of Petunia's friends over last night after she couldn't control her magic around her. Her name is Karen and she works at the Library in Little Whinging. She promised to keep stuff a secret, and she's already helped us in what we were researching. Before you say anything, consider Nixie here.

"Unless you're going to tell Petunia to cut off all contact with her, you won't be able to remove her memories permanently. There's also that other idea, especially if you can persuade her to be scanned before anything could happen.

"After all, all of us, including the kids, are practicing meditation in order to deal with the potential problem before it occurs.

"Finally, Petunia can't be relocated from Little Whinging, as that's where whatever protections Albus Dumbledore put up for Harry's protection are"

"You raise valid points, but I'm still duty bound to deal with the breach. However, it does give me more leeway to apply for an exemption from the statute for her. Typically, they are only given out to people who are absolutely essential to being able to maintain the statute, such as the Queen and the sitting Prime Minister. Though the latter is only given out in a time of an emergency, the last was Margret Thatcher during the war. Not even spouses are exempt, though I suspect that if word of this becomes public knowledge, a lot of people with muggle spouses will be trying it, so we'll need to get ahead of that. Great, another thing I need to worry about, and I can't trust Fudge as he's as easily bought as a chocolate frog.

"I'd like it if you would both consent to a full medical exam at St Mungo's to see if there is any difference between you and a normal magical. I would also like to do it for Hermione wasn't it?"

Dan answers this one "I think I'd like more information about what exactly would be involved in this, and what the consequences are. Also, no offence to you personally, but I don't think I'd like it to be part of our legal record no matter what we decide."

Amelia laughed, "don't worry I see your point."

They talked about their children for a bit, and eventually Amelia had to go.

"I've got to go and check in at St Mungo's to find out how Petunia is doing. Would you like to come, and you could also talk to one of the Healers at the same time."

Dangling the carrot in front of them she added "I'm going to be getting Harry from Hogwarts later, as Petunia is his legal guardian. He's going to need somewhere to stay tonight. Of course, I'd be more than willing to offer the use of my home, and bring Susan home to keep him company."

As expected Emma bites "He already knows us and has stayed with us overnight with Hermione, he's always welcome here. I'll come with you." She looks at Dan.

"You too and we close the practice for the day?"

"Yep, I'm in, I'll give Laura a call."

A short time later and the wonders of side-along apparition, Emma and Dan enter St Mungo's with Amelia. After talking to the welcome witch, Amelia leads them an impossible distance into the Hospital before they arrive at Petunia's ward. Where they meet the lead healer. They find out that as she's stable she's been transferred from Trauma to an in patient ward, Emma ensures that she has a good hold on Nixie, as she doesn't want to put a patient at risk by losing track of her. Even so she can see her waving her tentacles around excitedly. This leads to questions from the Healer, which leads to more discussions and the discovery that they are qualified muggle doctors. Eventually, Amelia gives up trying to get more of a status update than "She hasn't woken up yet." And interrupts them long enough to let them know she's going to Hogwarts to pick up Harry and Hermione.

An hour later and the conversation is well and truly derailed when Hermione barrels into Dan with a hug that takes him off his feet. She started babbling about how her term had been going, the new stuff she'd been learning, her progress with meditation, the fact that Harry was now a girl, making new friends, and the absolute tradigy that was the fact they were limiting her book reading time in the evenings. Oh and thank you for photocopying the charter.

Emma looked at the pair with a fond expression before glancing over to Harry who was stood there with a wistful expression on her face. Walking over she slowly enfolded him in a hug, Nixie climbed onto his hair chittering excitedly before settling there, her tentacles rooting through it.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"And the rest?"

"I'm worried about Aunt Petunia."

She led him over to one of the chairs, and slowly coaxed his concerns and worries out of him. She was absolutely mortified that she'd been mentally calling her a him when she found out that they were currently female. Emma pretended to be offended when she laughed at her reaction, and explained that it was fine, it confuses her too.

Amelia watched this with a wistful smile on her face before asking the doctor to let her know once Petunia woke up, and then heading back to the office.

Nixie's Big Day
Nixie was excited, her person had just started letting their magic do what it did naturally. It tasted so much better when they did that rather than holding it till it got stagnant. She was almost dislodged from her meal when they got up and rushed to the place they stored the stuff that they used to repair their personal armour. Then they started to cut off their nest material, this was good until they almost got her tail, so she fled to hide for a while. Her person left before she brought up the courage to go back to them. Quickly checking that she was the only one left in the cave, she retrieved as much of the nest material as she could. It still had some food in it, so it would good to tide her over next time her person left without her.

She didn't realise when she took the nest material that she'd need it so soon, but her person hadn't come back yet, and the sun was starting to go down. She'd watched a lot of tree people walk past they just weren't worth the effort of breaching their armour, she'd tried it once when she was young before she came to this place. It took too long for too little return, she'd almost been eaten by a larger predator ground walker, and the food just wasn't that filling. She even saw a weak person walk past, as well as some weak armoured predator ground walkers, if she could get out of the cave she supposed the weak person could feed her given that she hadn't seen any predators that would be able to catch her. She ended her desperate search for an exit at the transparent wall that the light was coming in to avoid the temptation to waste more energy looking for an exit she already couldn't find.

Just as the sun was touching the caves that she could see out of the clear wall the tree person came into the cave and resealed the cave before she could get to that side of the cave. Ooohh, she could sense it carried treats around with it so once it stopped moving around she gorged herself on treats and then went and laid down in her nest.

Her person came home later and the tree person brough them up to their nest while she was digesting the treats. Later she was able to feed on her person and returned to her nest to sleep.

Her person and the tree person had left the cave without her waking up, this was a disaster. She ran around the cave to check, but they didn't return before the sun rose. She went to the clear wall where she could see tree people walking past and waited to see if they would come back, but no one came and she was starving. She'd wasted so much energy looking around the cave and she'd eaten the food she'd stored in the nest. Just when she wasn't sure whether she'd be able to hang on any longer weak people that looked stronger than that almost tree person, she decided that these were not-tree people, and the other one was an almost-tree person from the previous day breached the cave. Normally she'd try to defend the cave, but they were carrying treats and they'd left treats outside the cave and she was so hungry. Going with the safer option she went out and gathered gorged herself on treats. The not tree-people then came out and started making more treats, so even though she wasn't hungry she started gathering up the treats and storing them in her nest. She wanted to be sure that if her person was gone for a long time again she wouldn't go hungry for at least a day.

She was in heaven, there were no predators, and the not-tree people kept putting down treats, she liked the flavour and texture of the ones they placed in the air best, but she had to jump to get those. The ones they placed on the tree people were harder and less filling, but still nicer than scavenged food. She paused running around once her nest was full, sniffing around she realised that there was no scavengeable food, only the people and the treats the not-tree people left around. Deciding that she didn't want to be stranded away from her nest, she started to make more nests amongst the roots of tree-trees. Eventually some of the not tree-people started leaving small treats on the ground amongst the grass on the other side of the cave from where the tree people walked. Finally, a person arrived with a not-tree person, as she was exhausted she climbed up to their nesting material and started to nap.

When she woke up the person had gone to a place where there were so many different treats around that her tentacles itched to taste them all. But the person she was with caught her before she could get to one.

27. Chapter 27

Petunia woke up in a comfortable bed in an unusual room. It had a plain wooden desk with a chair next to it, a quill and parchment were placed neatly on top with a couple of books and what looked like a newspaper. Not recognising any sort of place this could be, she tried to get up only to find that she was stuck to the bed in some fashion. Just as she started to panic a middle aged woman wearing robes came in through the door.

"Ah, Mrs Dursley you're awake. You're in a private ward at St Mungo's hospital. You were in quite a state this morning and you have a broken pelvis which is why you've been secured to the bed."

"St Mungo's?"

"The magical hospital of Great Britain. You were found by the crew on the Knight bus this morning.

"I'm Healer Gosling, and I'm in charge of your care at the moment. When you came in you were too close to magical depletion to risk healing your broken bones so I'm afraid that we're going to need to keep you in for a couple of days while we vanish and regrow those bones as it's now too late to heal them. You have some guests outside, but before I let them in, do you have any questions, or would you like anything?"

"Would I be able to sit up?"

"Oh, certainly, don't try to do it yourself at the moment, let me know when you're in a comfortable position and I'll set you back in place."

She draws her wand and undoes the sticking charms before carefully moving Petunia into a sitting position.

"That's fine. Can I get something to eat and drink please?"

"Oh, sure Dixy!" a House-elf pops in

"How can Dixy be helping Healer Gosley?"

"This is Dixy, the house-elf assigned to the inpatient wards, call him whenever you need anything and he'll either come and get one of us or get what you want. Dixy, this is Petunia Dursley, she's going to be a patient for a few days. Would you be able to get her some water and a sandwich please?"

Dixy clicks his fingers and a table appears next to the bed, he then pops away and a moment later pops back with a jug of water and a plate of sandwiches.

"Food for Bright witch." He says before popping away again.

"If that's all, I'll bring in your guests. Madam Bones from the DMLE is also here to take your statement, I have to inform you that as you were unconscious when you arrived we were required to take a forensic scan to record any lingering magic and the state of your injuries as soon as we'd ascertained that you had been… assaulted.

"One of your visitors is a man by the name of Dan Granger, we can deny him access if you would like. Your ward, Harry Potter is also here, but there seems to be special circumstances around her as we have been reassured that she is indeed female despite common knowledge to the contrary."

"He's a good friend and has been there for me over the last month, so let him in."

"Oh, and I've being informed that you have a rather unique familiar, while you are staying here would you be able to let one of your friends look after it, as we use a vast array of charms here to monitor our patients, and some of them are critical to the their health. Though I expect one or two of the doctors will be in at some point to see if we could possibly experiment with it in the spell damage ward."

She leaves, and then a couple of minutes later she leads in Petunia's guests. As soon as Nixie sees her human she jumps off Emma and launches herself at Petunia. A moment later she's grabbed a snack and is snuggled in her persons nest hair. Seconds later the room is full of Healers as Healer Gosling looks confused for a moment.

"False alarm guys, one of the guests must have had her familiar with them and it's just eaten a monitoring charm. Ignore any more alerts until they go, and I'll make sure that they take it with them." All the healers file out, some of them craning their necks backwards to see if they can catch sight of the mysterious familiar.

"Dixy, would we be able to have some chairs please?" Dixy promptly pops in and conjures enough chairs for everyone.

"Petunia, would you mind if I had a look at your familiar?"

"Sure give me a sec, ow, ow, come on let go. Apparently not, she doesn't want to let me go." Nixie grabs onto the hair when she tries to remove her from her person.

Hermione reaches up behind her and holds her hand out, "I've got Chirpy with me, he's my familiar but he's still young so he doesn't seem to be willing to leave whoever he's on yet."

When the healer looks at her blankly she adds "They seem to be invisible to most people."

With a sound of understanding, Healer Gosling waved her wand and said "Revelio" and nothing happened. She then waved her wand again and said "Specialis Revelio" and a faint outline appeared in Hermione's hand.

"That's… Unexpected." Amelia says

"You're telling me. That would imply that your familiars are living spells rather than creatures hidden by magic."

"I know, I have to tell the unspeakables. They'd love to examine them."

"Well you can tell them the goblins have some, as they're not getting their hands on Nixie." Petunia says vehemently.

"That goes for Chirpy too." Hermione cradles her hand to her chest.

Amelia holds up her hands defensively "I'm not going to be taking any familiars away, for a start there are laws against it unless you're incarcerated. Also, don't you think it has interesting implications that the 5 of you can see them, I'm assuming you can seem them Harry."

Harry nods from her position near the door.

"Well, I'll leave you lot to it."

They hear her leave while talking to herself "Well that has interesting implications for some spells, I wonder if fiendfyre is actually a summoning spell rather than…"

Amelia drags one of the chairs over to a corner and sits quietly while Petunia is reacquainted with everyone.

As the Grangers are checking up on her, Petunia notices that Harry is still near the door. Patting the bed beside her she calls out to him.

"Harry, come here and sit beside me. I've missed you."

With a look between apprehension and hope on her face Harry gets up on the bed beside Petunia, freezing when she winces.

"It's ok, you just jostled my hips, and they're a bit painful." She pulls Harry the rest of the way into sitting beside her and enfolds her in as much of a hug as she can.

Seeing what's going on, Dan and Emma drag Hermione over to chat to Amelia, who waves her wand and sets up a privacy charm.

"I know what's happened, I was sent the report remember. But it doesn't matter. I admit that when I received it back in September it was a bit difficult to accept. But I've been thinking about it for a couple of months now, and do you know what? Nephew or Niece, you're still Lily's child, and so I still care about you. Do you understand?"

"Yes Aunt Petunia" Harry responded almost out of rote response.

"You don't really do you, not yet." Harry shook her head.

"Look at me, not like that, just at my appearance. I look like one of those models on the covers of magazines, it happened yesterday unless I've been asleep for a whole day. I didn't even notice it as it happened while I was meditating, it took Emma pointing it out when Karen and I got round there for me to check a mirror. Even then I was too worried about how I could calm Vernon down when I got home that I didn't even consider how it could affect my relationship with him. And well, we can see how that turned out for me." She gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"I had a long time to think while I was lying in the bed last night while he slept on top of me, and I needed to distract myself from what hurt. Our magic seems to have a mind of it's own, it responds to our subconscious desires and fills them like an extra pair of hands. For the last few days I've struggled to do things manually, as if I wasn't concentrating the tea would make itself, the dishes would clean themselves, and things would be at hand when I wanted them. It also changed my body to look like this, except my hair was down to my waist. I then thought about your situation that first morning in Hogwarts. You woke up alone in a strange room with strange people around, you went down to do something familiar and meditate with Hermione. But she wasn't there. You wanted something familiar and comfortable so your magic made it so that you could visit Hermione the only way you knew how. You needed to be a girl.

"I bet since then you've found that you're happier as a girl than you were as a boy, and so you keep changing back whenever you want to be happy."

Harry nods.

"Do you ever change back into a boy?"

Harry nods wordlessly and burrows into her side.

"I bet it's only in situations that remind you of living before."

She nods into her chest as she starts to cry.

"It's ok, it's ok. Try to learn how to control your change, and find things that you like to do as a boy. I know it's going to be hard as saying we were a bad family would be putting it kindly and understating things. But I'd like to be able to do the things my mother did with me with you, as well as the things that boys typically do. I want to take you shopping for pretty dresses, brush each other's hair while talking about what we've been doing, and teach you how to do your make-up. I want to be able to take you out and see you dressed up all smart in a suit or other casual clothes.

"The other thing that I realised is that we mistreated Dudley just as much as we mistreated you. Not like that, but in ways that I fear are far more damaging in the long run. We spoiled him, I know at your age that seems like a good thing, but we never said no, we never told him that something was wrong. In fact Vernon often encouraged him in this. Unlike you and me, who will carry the scars of what has happened inside us, other people will have to carry the scars of what Vernon and I did to Dudley unless he gets better through school and when he comes back home.

"I know you probably don't understand what I'm talking about right now and you're thinking it's unfair what I'm saying, but think about it between now and Christmas and see what you think, we can talk about it more then.

"But, on a slightly more happy note, I'm not sure, but I don't think Vernon is going to be around anymore. I'm sure I've got to talk to Amelia later about last night, and I want to see if they've got something that will help me remember more clearly. But I think he's gone. If he is do you want to come home for Christmas instead of spending it at the Grangers. We'll still visit, but we can go out and do things together, maybe we can adopt a house-elf to help look after the house, or visit London and see the sights.

"Listen to me rambling on and you've not even said a word."

"It's ok, I was enjoying listening to you. I think I'd like that too."

Further conversation was interrupted as Hermione fell painfully on the floor as her chair disappeared, the movement catching Petunia's attention.

28. Chapter 28

Sitting legs akimbo on the floor Hermione looked offended as if the universe had done something horribly bad. This wasn't helped by the fact the her mother and father were openly laughing at her. When Dan fell on the floor a moment later she saw Chirpy run away in fright to hide behind her mothers leg and burst out laughing. Between gasps she tried to warn her mum before Chirpy felt safe and nommed on her chair. Emma was looking around her feet when her chair disappeared and Amelia stood up carefully and looked around warily as she tried to work out what was going on. Pulling herself together enough to act, she scrambled around on her hands and knees, still shaking with giggles until she found Chirpy. Placing him on her shoulder he quickly disappeared under her hair.

Seeing Harry walking over, Amelia cancelled silencing charm allowing them to hear her voiced query about if they were OK. After everyone confirmed that they were she looked back over at his Aunt with a question in her eyes. After a moment of looking at her Petunia lifted her arm and indicated the space beside her. Harry went back and carefully climbed back in beside here, freezing at her wince.

Amelia coughs before speaking up, "Sorry to push this, but I need to go over what happened in your own words for the official investigation. Now is there anyone that you'd like to be here or anyone you would prefer to leave?"

Petunia looks down and comes to a decision, "Harry can stay if she wants, though it's not going to be pretty. If you don't mind I'd appreciate it if the rest of you waited outside.

"Also, my memory of the last bit is a little hazy, so I don't know if there's anything that can improve my memory of the events."

"I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I suppose we could bring a Mind Healer in to look at the memories, but they would have to enter your mind to do so. A Pensive would also do the job, but they're as rare as hens teeth, as not only are they fiddly to make, they are also exceedingly fragile and so they often cost many times their own worth to be commissioned due to the number of breakages, but even when you own one, the slightest scratch in the wrong place and you've ruined your investment.

"I tried to get one for my department when I first took my position and got a three hour lecture on why we couldn't have one, and only in the most important trials could be ask the unspeakable department for a loan of one." She adds to justify the explanation before she gets up in search of the healer.

Petunia calls out for the House-elf, "Dixy… Would you be able to find some chairs, non-conjured ones, as the ones you provided before got eaten."

"Dixy is confused, but Dixy will do as asked."

While Amelia was out Petunia took the time to eat a couple of sandwiches and offer the others around. Getting some food into her sure helped as she perked up almost immediately.

Almost 15 minutes later Amelia opened the door and held it open as a couple of Healers walk in carefully carrying a velvet wrapped bundle around 24" (60cm) across. Another healer came in levitating an ornate wooden stand before setting it down and moving the water to the desk by the wall and banishing the table. Placing the stand near the bed they place the velvet package on the stand and unwrap the pensive. It was a beautiful sight, a shallow bowl made from thin moonstone with a wide scalloped edged. The runes seemed to glow with magic and the a bright band seems to chase around the bowl. Looking at it, Dan is convinced that he's looking at something that would currently be impossible to produce in the mundane world, and that's without the runic inscription. Picking his jaw off the floor, he can only mutter wow under his breath.

A couple of moments later he clears his throat. "While I'm sure that people have made similar things out of marble, I have never seen anything like that made out of moonstone. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to transport here, I'm even struggling to think of how we could transport it in the muggle world."

"That's easy, they make a Styrofoam mould, place it in a tight wooden box, line it with foam and add a foam lined Styrofoam plug. Once it's packed away it can't move and the Styrofoam protects from light knocks, so they then transport it on a trolly jack and flat trucks. It's not cheap, but it can be done. They use it for transporting antique bone china bowls and glassware."

Everyone looks a Petunia.

"What? I'm a housewife that was studying to be a legal secretary before I met Vernon, and daytime TV is a thing."

Her voice becomes morose "I may also have had cause to be awake at night, and watched some Open University programs on BBC2."

"That explains how you knew to look for those videos. Thank you, I'm sorry I didn't know before." Harry says into her chest. Petunia strokes her hair, then takes a sip of water.

Healer Gosling coughs delicately, "Mrs Dursley, may I ask, where did you get the glass of water?"

Petunia looks down at the glass in surprise and then curses under her breath. "I'm sorry, this has been happening for the last week. I presume it came from the desk, I was feeling thirsty."

"Ah! Well, can I introduce Mind Healer Tonks, currently she the only member of staff qualified to handle the pensive due to her upbringing. I need to remove the water from the room if you may end up summoning it again. I can also show anyone that's not staying to the cafeteria where you can get a drink."

Harry looks up from where she's hugging Petunia "Could I drink a glass of water before you take it away."

Gosling brings the jug around the bed to Harry's side and watches her drink a glass of water before taking it out of the room with the Grangers.

Amelia goes over to the desk and sets up a dictaquill, and moving into a professional frame of mind.

"Mrs Dursley, in your own words can you describe the events of yesterday and this morning that culminated in you arriving here. If you do not remember please say so, and if you require the Assistance of Healer Tonks to provide a clear memory again say so. Please start when you're ready, and if you need a drink we can have one brought in."

Petunia describes the day starting from the point when she finished her meditation, how she was unconsciously using her magic to do tasks unless she concentrated on not using it, and what happened at the library. She then explained how she visited the Grangers and the phone call they had with Vernon over the phone. Finally she got to the events of when she got home, and she choked up as she retold the ordeal she went through, and the hours she spent lying awake pinned to the bed. Amelia only interrupted her occasionally for clarification, and the scratch of the dictaquill was often the only sound apart from Petunia's voice. Near the end it was joined by quiet sobs from Harry, as she had experience of some of what Petunia had experienced.

"Healer Tonks, would you be able to assist me with the next bit as I'm not entirely sure what happened as I'd been laying in bed for at least an hour when my opportunity to escape came."

"Very well, I'm going to use a spell to enter your mind and help you to pull the thoughts together. Once you're happy that it's the entire thing, I'd like you to squeeze my hand and I'll stop the spell and then extract the memory. This may feel a little weird, so I would like you to do it a couple of times now with any memory that comes to mind. I'll extract it then place it back in. Once you're happy that you haven't been distracted during the process we'll begin."

Amelia spoke up "Healer Tonks is now guiding Mrs Dursley into acclimatising to having a memory extracted. The dictaquill will continue once this exercise has finished."

As it was no longer recording, Petunia ventured to ask, "Would you also like my memory of holding Harry thorough his nightmare? Is it his or her, as you were a boy at the time?"

"I don't know, this is as new to me as it is to you. I'll ask Tonks next time I see her."

"I would be interested, but if Healer Tonks agrees, I'd like to do it after the interview."

"Ok, I think I'm ready, could I have a glass of water before we start?"

After Petunia has a glass of water Amelia restarts the dictaquill.

"Mrs Dursley has finished acclimating and has indicated that she is ready to have the memory extracted. Mind healer Tonks is starting the process and will place the memory in the pensive once she's finished. We will then both visit the memory and once complete will describe what we saw. If we are unable to agree on a detail we will revisit the memory until we can both agree."

"The memory has been placed in the pensive. Mrs Dursley please can you describe the starting and ending points of the memory."

"The memory starts with me lying on the bed just before it happens, and it ends when I pass out in a field. I hope you can't feel what I felt while you're in there."

"We are entering the memory now."

"Shh, I don't want you to see this sort of thing yet, ever if I have anything to say about it. You have enough bad memories of your own."

"Can I at least watch the one with my nightmare?"

"Sure thing."

"Is it weird that I cry more while I'm a girl?"

"Not at all, at your age it's because you feel it's more socially acceptable."

"We have viewed the memory and I'm not sure that I believe it. Healer Tonks, in your professional opinion is this a true memory?"

"This is a true and untampered memory, there are also no signs of delusions although it's clear the owner was under a great deal of stress and pain."

"Then I will begin my description."

The description continues for several minutes, mild sobbing is recorded in the background.

"This concludes the interview with Mrs Dursley."

Andromeda gathers up the memory and goes to return it when Petunia holds up her hand. "Keep it, burn it, whatever, I'd rather not have it back."

"Very well, though you should know that the memory will return on it's own over the next week or so."

"If it comes back it comes back, but it will let me put some time between then and when it returns."

"Very well." She shakes it off the end of her wand where it evaporates.

"Would you still allow us to see the other memory, I assume base on my conversations with Dan and Emma, it's when you became magical."

Andromeda double takes at that statement, "What do you mean became magical. Despite the constant rumours that muggleborns steal magic from purebloods, there has never been a case where someone spontaneously became magical."

"Well, we have three now, and I suspect that there will be another one shortly, especially if I can't get a waver for the statute of secrecy."

Petunia looks confused "What do you mean another one. Oh, you are not taking one of my friends away, no way no how. I'll hunt her down and release Nixie on her if I have to."

"Exactly." And looking at that last memory, it's not like I could hold you in a Jail overnight against your will.

A moment passed where no one seemed to know what to say. It was broken when Petunia said "I'm ready if you want that memory."

Andromeda extracted the memory and then placed it in the pensive. Harry hopped down off the bed and round to the Pensive.

I'm coming too, you can either watch me go in safely or I can sneak in after you.

Andromeda smiles indulgently, not wanting to point out that she could just stun both of them before they could blink and go in and back out before they woke up. "After you then little prince."

Harry checks his body, "Hey, how did you know I was a boy, I never recognise when I change."

Andromeda looks surprised, "I didn't, I was just poking fun at you."

"See you in a bit mum, I mean Aunt" a 'Please don't hit me' look comes over his face as he cringes back once he realises what he said.

Petunia smiled at him and tried to make it reassuring, "I didn't mind I was flattered that your opinion on me has changed so quickly."

Carefully he placed his face in the pensive, ensuring that Petunia was in his field of vision as long as possible.

Petunia sighed, with how far he, she, Harry had come over the last couple of months it was easy to forget that it was just papering over the cracks. She supposed that was true for her too. She hoped that it wouldn't take too much to regain the ground lost when things like that happened. She resolved to ask Healer Tonks if she could speak with her before she was checked out. She holds her hand up and looks at it. It's ironic, when she had control she wanted freedom. Now she has freedom she's finding that she desperately needs a different sort of control. She's scared that if she doesn't build that control that one night she might disappear and never be able to return to earth. She snorts at the fact that it took someone quite a lot of magic to turn her into a spiteful witch who took enjoyment out of making her nephews life miserable in payment for protecting him from Vernon. As if she was honest with herself, she could have phrased things differently and been natural rather than antagonist.

Harry coming out of the memory and shouting "That was so cool, I wish I'd seen it like that the first time." Stopped her thoughts from spiralling further.

God, look at him, she doesn't deserve him.

Picking up on the direction her thoughts were taking her, he comes round to hug her just as Amelia and Andromeda appear in short succession. "You've been doing really well, and I know it wasn't really you before my birthday. Because the real you gave me a hug, and that was the first hug I remember." Petunia hugged him back as she burst into tears, ignoring the pain in her ribs and hips that doing so caused.

Giving them a little privacy Andromeda shudders and looks at Amelia "Well that was a completely different experience to the previous memory, I guess having magic when you're making the memory changes more than we ever thought. I don't think I'm going to get over the sheer panic she felt even while she was trying to protect him. I think it says a lot of things about his life that he can come out of it looking so happy. None of them good. If I give a professional opinion about this, do you think you can get the school to allow him to see a mind healer, as no child should shrug that feeling off and only see the wonder."

29. Chapter 29

Amelia tidied up and left pretty quickly after the second memory, and she had a lot to think about too. As when this gets out it will be a political minefield, especially when they start losing the more impulsive members of the pureblood block because they try to prove it to be wrong and are totally unprepared for it. Though, losing someone like Umbridge wouldn't be that big a loss. She pulls herself out of her thoughts as she floos back to the office.

"Healer Tonks, does a pensive work in a travel trunk?"

Andromeda looks up at Harry in surprise "I don't actually know. I know the rune work is very sensitive, if you look closely here you can see why." She unwraps a section of the pensive so he can see.

"Can you see where this line seems to cross over the other one?" Harry nods.

"That's because the pensive is made up of three layers of moonstone that are fused together using a special process where the base is spun and then a magically liquefied blob of moonstone is carefully added to the centre and it spreads out into a thin layer. Once it sets it becomes part of the body and the next layer of runes is carved. Once it's finished a final layer is added and the control runes are carved, in the centre a runic circle is added that receives a memory. It is the final test to get a rune mastery, one that I've failed twice so far. When you've completed your pensive the examiner's come to you rather than the other way round. One thing they won't tell you until you start your mastery is that enlargement charms don't change the size of things evenly which is fine for single layer work, as the end result of the charm is even, but for multi-layer projects like this it will cause cracks between the layers. The same is true for magical glasses if they're made runically, the difference is in the level of consistency needed. So back to your question, I don't know because I don't know how the expansion charm would affect an item this big."

"Before you go, I'd like to know what I'd need to do in order to be one of your patients, as I am coming to realise that I have a lot more to deal with than I thought. I think that Harry should see a mind healer too, as he was in the same house as me even if I tried to protect him. I'll be writing to Dudley's school asking if they can arrange for a psychologist. Oh god, how am I going to afford Dudley's schooling without Vernon."

"You're already getting some money for me, maybe you could get some more to pay for all the years that I was a worthless burden on you."

"You were never that! I know what I used to say, but it's not true and never was. If we'd given you a chance, if I'd been able to keep you away from him you'd have photos on the wall, you'd be part of our family." Petunia fair growls out, causing Harry to cringe away from her tone of voice.

"I wasn't angry at you, I was angry at Vernon and myself, not you, never you."

"Mrs Dursley, I can take you on as a patient, though I'd have to talk to one of my colleagues who deals with children for Harry. As for your money problems, as you're family and magical you could talk to the Titles and Inheritance department at the ministry and enquire about taking up the Regency for house Potter. If you get it, it will be a lot of work and it may also come with enough resources that you don't need to worry about money for several years."

Still not entirely convinced that he's not going to be hit, Harry speaks up quietly "You could also order packaging for things like that pensive so that they have somewhere safe to store those items when they're not in use."

"That's a good idea Harry, and in a year or two, it might even be something I could do. But at the moment I can't spend long periods in the non-magical world as I can't control my magic reliably."

Harry visibly deflates.

Andromeda steps in "Harry, look at me. Your aunt didn't say that your idea was bad just that she couldn't do it now. It was a good idea, and she's going to need more of those in the future, but you're only young. That means that you're not aware of all of the issues that can come from certain things, or stop us from doing certain things. Sometimes that's a good thing as we worry about an imaginary problem that wouldn't actually come to pass. Other times the problems we see are all too real. I know that Binns is boring, and tends to try to associate everything with a Goblin rebellion, but you'll be covering the history of the statute of secrecy soon, and I'd like it if you wrote me a letter about why it was introduced at the time, and what you think has changed socially since then. Do you think you could do that for me?"

Harry looks up and nods.

"I think that we need to get the pensive put away and the others back in here before any of us say more things that accidently hurt the other." Andromeda holds up her hand to forestall Harry.

"Both you and your Aunt have been abused for years, you have ingrained lessons from that abuse that mean that certain things make you automatically do or feel certain things. This is a natural defensive reaction, and is why mind-healers like myself exist. I'm sure that if you think back you can see times when this happened."

"Do you mean like when Ron grabbed my arm and I just started to go along with what he wanted?"

"Exactly."

Harry looks down deep in thought while Andromeda finished packing up the pensive and didn't protest when she directed him to the chair by the desk. He was surprised and flinched badly when Hermione gave him a hug as a moment ago…

Hermione steps back looking a bit upset, "Are you OK?"

"Sorry, I was lost in thought and you startled me."

All too soon visiting time was over and Petunia handed Nixie over to Harry with some difficulty and they made their way home to the Grangers.

Once they were gone, Healer Gosling came back in and reapplied the charms that had been eaten. She then had Dixy bring Petunia some food and began to explain what was going to happen.

"Once you're finished eating we're going to lay you down and immobilise you. Once you're in position we will vanish your pelvis, this will feel weird, and probably like you've just peed yourself. This is normal and it's because the normal support that your body has to hold everything in position has disappeared. We will then use magic to move your legs into the right position for when your pelvis grows back. Finally, we'll vanish your broken ribs and feed you a skelegrow potion, be warned it tastes absolutely vile and you have to drink it all otherwise we have to do this again tomorrow once the portion you have drunk has cleared your system. Once we've confirmed that it's working we'll give you a dreamless sleep potion and see you in the morning. The reason for the sleeping potion is that the process becomes somewhat uncomfortable bordering on painful as your magic reconnects your muscles and ligaments to your new bones. During this time you absolutely must remain stationary otherwise you could end up with a much harder to treat condition than just a broken bone, as we'd need to individually spell each misaligned ligament correctly. This would be chargeable as it takes up valuable time rather than just a couple of potions and bed rest."

"Does that mean that healthcare is free?"

"No, the ministry covers up to 1 hours' worth of treatment as part of general taxation. This is because the hospital has to stay open for emergencies and our community is too small to rely on patients to do that. However, non-life threatening treatments that take a while are charged separately. At the moment I'm not actually treating you, so if something happened I would leave you hear and go deal with that. It's what I was doing while your guests were here. We also treat children for free, as a healthy child becomes a healthy adult." The way she's talking makes it seem like Gosling has had a similar conversation many many times.

"Given that you're asking me this, I guess that you've probably only been out of Hogwarts for a year or two, and you've been trying to survive in both worlds. They really need to do a class on this. There's a magical market near York, this is where most people go to buy their food and daily living supplies. Go there, buy some magical kitchen utensils and buy your food from there, it will save you money given how much more expensive things are getting in the muggle world."

Petunia opens her mouth a couple of times to object to the idea that she's that young, then decides that actually, it's probably better if she doesn't correct that particular misconception as the free advice might clear up as people start to assume that she actually knows what's going on. Instead she asks.

"So how much would people expect to be paid a week?"

"Oh god, I hope you're not being stiffed wherever you're working. If you're not getting at least 32G a week they're taking advantage of you. If you've got good newts and were lucky enough to land a good job you may get 50G, but don't bet on being able to find a job that pays that well."

With that Petunias treatment starts, and it's every bit as uncomfortable and disconcerting as she was told. She's grateful when she drinks the final potion and sinks into oblivion.

30. Chapter 30

Harry and Hermione are sitting facing each other on Hermione's bed. "Hermione, do you think Aunt Petunia would mind if I started calling her Mum."

"I don't see that as being a problem, why?"

"She doesn't feel like my Aunt before. My Aunt was an angry person who always snapped at me, belittled any of my achievements, and would find any excuse to make me do more work."

"I can't imagine your Aunt like that."

"She was, I found out just after I found the letter that she was being abused by Vernon, and worse than I was. I can easily see how if I wasn't being punished for even thinking about causing trouble, I could have so easily done the same to someone else. Even if I didn't want to hurt them.

"But once I found out and started protecting her too, it changed. She was happier when she came down in the mornings, we shared tea, and did the chores together. The one-time Vernon found out sounded like a bad night for her. But it didn't change who she was with me anymore. She even came to Diagon with me when before she wouldn't have ever countenanced doing anything that Vernon might disapprove of, and magic was high on that list."

"All that time we spent with you and your parents, she was different, happier and freer somehow. And then yesterday she doesn't even look like she used to, I mean it's still her, but not as old. I think I've been thinking about it for a while, and it only came together when I found out that she'd been badly hurt and was in hospital."

Feeling refreshed and normal once she wakes up early in the morning, Petunia decides that she shouldn't let her meditation fall by the wayside. Sinking into her trance she finds her magic easily and starts to work on how to control how active it is. It's still trial and error as she doesn't know what increases it's activity and what decreases it yet, but she feels like she's getting closer. She doesn't notice when Healers rush in, or when she surrounds herself with a clearly visible magical aura, or when her hair grows out to waist length again. She doesn't notice the recording charms and dictaquills going in the distance as the Healers are desperate to record this phenomena or when it suddenly flares into blinding light and goes dark again, leaving spots in the vision of all the watchers and all the unbound spells in the hospital dislodged, including those affecting the patients of long term care. Slowly her magic comes down to normal levels again and she opens her eyes before swearing softly, not noticing a couple of apprentice healers sweating in the corner.

She did notice an hour later when Amelia Bones walked in with a male healer both wearing very angry expressions on their faces.

"Of all the irresponsible things to do in a hospital, why on earth did you decide to practice channelling magic?" The man shouted at her.

Petunia struggled to defend herself, every instinct screaming to lower her head and accept the beating. Instead she said softly with her head lowered "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That, meditating to channel magic and increase your own ability."

"I wasn't doing that."

"Then what do you think you were doing?"

"I was trying to control my own magic, to learn how to quieten it."

There was a pregnant pause as neither Amelia or the male healer expected that response.

Choosing her words carefully "Lily Potter left a letter for Harry that arrived on his birthday. In it she said that there was something different about his magic and he needed to use the beginning steps of something called Occulmancy to learn to control it before he grew up otherwise it would likely kill him. So I decided to learn alongside him to support him and give him someone to talk to about what he found."

Amelia reigned in her anger with great difficulty and tried to think about what she'd just been told rationally. She seemed to remember reading the letter from Lily, though it's clear that Petunia left a lot of it out. There was also the fact that she almost certainly wouldn't know about channelling as it was only something that was talked about in borderline dark defence books.

In a tightly controlled voice she bites out "I've seen the letter in question, I think she's telling the truth. Merlin knows what she's going to be like once she learns some control."

The Healer stalks over to the desk and picks up the results of her scans and looks them over. Draws his wand and casts a few diagnostic spells. "She's no Merlin or Dumbledore, so I have no idea how she was able to do this without channelling as no one has magic pure enough to even consider expelling that much magic without being a powerhouse like them."

As no one seems to be angry anymore and they're not paying attention to her, Petunia shrinks into the pillows on the bed and tries to look small and harmless.

Amelia conjures a chair and sits down heavily rubbing at her temples, "Let's assume that she's telling the truth is there anyway to check?"

"We have a teaching tool that Journeyman Healers have to show competence in before they can be accredited as full Healers. It's sometimes used in obscure cases where we need to calculate exactly how much magic someone has in reserve in order to treat a progressive spell or use a lifesaving potion."

The two apprentices start to pay rapt attention as they are getting a free lesson from a Master, possibly Grandmaster Healer.

"You, go and get a purity plate from the storage room and calibration stones, ask for help if you can't find them immediately."

The other apprentice cuts off a blank section of parchment and starts taking notes as the other one runs off.

"I'm sure you're aware of the Merlin scale of magic." Amelia nods.

"That goes from 0 to 1000, and is the absolute amount of magic that something contains. When measuring creature like dragons they expand the scale as size affects the absolute amount. Our diagnostic spells work off of an assumption of a certain range of densities as muscle mass and magical power are strongly correlated while fat is the inverse, so rather than needing to do calculations to work out just how their magic is distributed we instead take shortcuts for speed. 99% of the time this works out, as someone that's stronger but has lower magical density would have the same power as someone with a greater density but lower physical fitness."

Amelia nods thoughtfully as this explains some of the things about the Auror corps.

"To measure magical density we use Thaums, this goes from 1 to 1000, where 1 is the lowest level needed to use a spell, while 1000 would be a being of pure magic. Most muggles have a level of around 1/100th of a Thaum, squibs clock in at above 1/10th a Thaum. The highest level ever recorded was Grindelwald who was measured at 40 ½ when he was imprisoned in Nuremburg. Given that magical quantity works out at around 0.1/lb we can calculate that he would have scored around a whopping 800 on the Merlin scale.

"Given our standard assumptions our medical spells, given a 1 hour recovery time, calculated her to be at around 300-350 on the Merlin scale at full capacity, and she was dangerously low with 30 when she came in. I won't take you through the arithmancy for this as we don't have time. But suffice to say, unless she has a magical density like a dragon, our spells are highly unlikely to be wrong. The reason they don't work on Dragons is that their magical density is over 100, and our spells shortcut and take a fractional reading and extrapolate out."

Amelia groans as she can see where this is going to end up.

"Would you be able to do the calculations for a creature that weighs around 1 ½ lbs and is made of pure magic?"

"1500" The doctor responds promptly.

"Merlin, I knew the day was going too well when my eggs were perfect, and I had no missives from Fudge on my desk when I got in. Petunia has a verifiably purely magical creature as a familiar that lives off magic. Healer Gosling verified it with me yesterday afternoon."

A panting apprentice came back with the equipment and handed it to the Head Healer before going to stand back beside the other Apprentice and scanning over their notes.

"Oh, she said that she'd got the title of her Mastery dissertation and that she'd have a summary ready for next week for me to sign of on. Anyway, lets get started."

He lays the plate on the bed and opens the box revealing the stones inside.

"We've got 5 stones, the first of which is magically inert, the others go up in grades of 100 Thaums each. We stop at 500 because of the difficulty of both making a higher one, and the fact that charging a larger one would exhaust most people. As you can see, we charge the stone until the rune on the top turns red, then once it turns green we place it on the plate here and the number appears above it. Once we've verified that all 5 stones have given the correct numbers we place our wand or finger on the plate here and once we've channelled enough magic the number will show."

The plate shows 8 1/3

"As you can see, I'm not a particularly strong wizard, so I've had to make it up with skill. Amelia if you would?"

Amelia does the same and it shows 18 17/100

"That's a very respectable score, certainly in the upper levels of the wizarding population."

"Now Petunia, would you be able to do the same. If you're not used to doing it without a wand, just imagine a stream of water coming out of your finger."

She does that and a stream of water comes out and splashes off the plate all over the other two.

"Ok, I think you took that a little too literally. Think back to what your magic felt like while you were meditating and imagine that coming out of your finger."

A soft white light came out of her finger and streamed into the plate and showed 819 1/5

Spluttering in disbelief he get's the two apprentices to test, they come out as 10 1/3 and 14 12/25 respectively. Calling Dixy he persuades him to do it 60 1/7. He calls in another Master Healer to check the calibration and test it 13 1/8. Finally, he interrupts Andromeda and gets her to verify that the plate is functioning correctly.

It was into this that Harry and the Grangers walked into.

A man barked at them "Right you four, I need you to push your magic into this plate."

Looking up Amelia sees who it is, "I don't think you want them to do that."

"They're magical, of course I want them to do it, the more data we have the easier it's going to be to work out what's wrong with the calibration."

Amelia mutters under her breath, "You asked for it."

Harry looked up at her Aunt who nodded back to her and says in a quiet voice "Just imagine the stuff you feel while you're meditating is coming out of your finger. Don't imagine water otherwise you'll get the bed wet again."

Shrugging she does as asked and the number 840 shows up, then he climbs onto the bed and hugs his aunt.

Hermione, Emma and Dan all go next – 803, 798, and 790 respectively.

Seeing those number Andromeda shouts "Bingo, Master Dagworth, cast the standard diagnostic charm on them and see what comes out. If the plate is correct it should feedback obscenely high numbers."

Dagworth casts the spells on Dan and Emma and goggles at the numbers, "Ok, they match up. What in Hades name is going on?"

Amelia gets up and gently bashes her head against a wall. Then sighs, turns around and leans against it. "Petunia, Dan, and Emma aren't witches or wizards. They were born muggles and until a few months ago they were still muggles. Harry accidently found a way to turn a muggle into a magical, and Hermione reproduced it a few weeks later and accidently converted her parents. They have a friend that knows about it and they have threatened to turn her magical if we try to enforce the statute against her. Finally, Petunia's familiar is a purely magical creature, a living spell if you will, that eats magic."

With Harry hugging her Petunia was able to voice a query "Can I go now?"

Dagworth waved at her absently "Oh yeah sure, your no longer in danger of magical exhaustion, just make sure you're not on your own for the next few days and you'll be fine. Sign out at the welcome witch."

With that they leave, Harry holding onto a clearly shaken Petunia. The welcome witch kindly transfigures her nightgown into day robes for the journey home, and they all head back to the Grangers.

31. Chapter 31

Walking up the path to the Grangers residence, Harry was suddenly assaulted by an angry white owl as Hedwig landed on his shoulder and proceeded to beat her around the head with her wing, and pinch his ear hard enough to draw blood with his beak.

"Hey. What's the big idea? No I didn't know I was coming here yesterday. Madam Bones picked me up after class, I didn't even have time to change. I'm sorry. No I don't think they'll let you. I can't stop you trying."

They made it inside while Hedwig was still berating Harry and Emma took Petunia upstairs to get changed. Once Hedwig finished beating him up he joined in with Hermione in talking about how they were doing at school. Petunia informed them about her need to go to Diagon Ally to talk to Kragnast about the possibility of gaining access to more money. She writes a letter to McGonagall saying that she's out of St Mungo's, but she needs to keep Harry out for the weekend to deal with the fallout of Vernon leaving, she also says that she's keeping Hermione around to support Harry during this time. Despite her arguments earlier, Hedwig swoops down and grabs the letter before demanding that the window is opened. They then troop off to Diagon Alley in order to see about getting things sorted. On the way Harry asks Petunia if he could call her Mum, as she was no longer the Petunia that was his Aunt. She agrees.

Walking up to Gringotts they see a wooden sign by the inside of the door that reads "Wizengamot has decreed a new Exchange rate to take place on the Winter solstice in order to bring prices back in line with the muggle world. 1G will now be worth £12". Making a note of it, Petunia leads them over to the desks at the back, and once the Goblin stops working for a moment she starts talking.

"Would you be able to see if Kragnast is available to talk about the Potter accounts?"

A goblin is sent off to check for availability, then comes back shortly stating that he would be ready in 10 minutes.

Deciding to wait, they chat quietly amongst themselves before a goblin arrives to lead them to an office. Petunia notices that the symbol on the door looks nothing like the one that she was taken to before. Once they are led in, they notice that Kragnast is sitting on a chair to the side of the desk while an older goblin is sitting in behind it.

"Come in. Please be known to Floor Manager Barknus. Farlor bring chairs for our guests, non-conjured as they have an Aictuilaxr."

"Greetings, I am Petunia Dursley, this is my ward Harry Potter, and family friends Dan, Emma, and Hermione Granger." They all bow or curtsey as their name is said. The door is opened, and goblins enter carrying chairs that look suspiciously like the ones that normally go behind the desks.

"Please, take a seat. What can Gringotts do for you today."

"My husband put me in the hospital two days ago, and now he's missing. This means that the money that he earned to support the house will no longer be available. As such I was wondering whether it was possible that I could gain more access to the Potter funds, and if Gringotts would be able to help me do that."

Kragnast barks a laugh and says to Barknus "I told you that being friendly and helpful to this one would pay off."

Turning his attention back to Petunia he continued, "We could indeed do that, however I do not believe that it would be in either your or our best interests to do so. If you remember the reason I was able to be so helpful to you before is due to the fact that you were not legally a witch.

"We have been looking into this, and I think I have a proposal that would work out for us. Would you be willing to listen, or should I move onto the Ministry business?"

Petunia looks at Dan who shrugs "It costs you nothing to listen, and you may not get the offer again if you refuse."

"Ok, I'll listen."

"While you are still mastering your magic, we are willing to rent a room in your house on a bed and breakfast basis. We are willing to pay 50G a week for this privilege. Once you have mastered your magic we would like to negotiate further services."

"Why would you offer that, as it seems like a lot of money."

Kragnast looks at Barknus who takes over in a gravelly voice "As you may remember from your last meeting, Gringotts is situated over the lair of a dangerous predator in The Dream.

"This means that since we were confined here in 1817 by peace treaty with the wizarding world, we have been unable to train new Goblins in the art of walking the dream. This means that we have lost access to the source of a lot of the ores that we use in our smithing. The statute of secrecy prevents us from doing business in the non-magical world, and the treaty of 1743 grants the Ministry a monopoly on contracting on Goblin business for witches and wizards. The other non-human races are in similar positions, and so we can trade with them for these sorts of services.

"Then you turn up. Someone that's not legally a witch but is legally a magical. You also live in the non-magical world. So Kragnast took a gamble and volunteered services and information that we normally would have withheld unless asked. We didn't know if anything would come from it, but apparently an opportunity has become available to both of us.

"You could take up the regency for House Potter, at which point you would become legally a witch and would be allowed to own a wand even though you haven't passed any owls. On the other hand, you could do business with us, and remain free from some of the Ministry Laws, such as those that discriminate based on blood status."

Petunia looked at Dan and Emma for reassurance then thought for a moment. "What if I were to say that I'm not the only non-witch magical anymore?"

A look of glee crosses both of their faces before it's quickly smothered. "We would be very interested in opening discussions for a similar situation with them as well. As where we have made a lot of space here, it also means that we have a lot of goblins that want to train."

She looks at Harry who smiles at her and shrugs to say it's her decision. "I think that I would like some immediate things, as well as an ongoing thing. Ongoing, I would like help learning to control my magic, for that I'll be willing to work with one goblin that's staying in that room to teach them the meditation technique we've been using. Secondly, I'd like help with getting access to something I've heard called a floo, as using the Knight bus is getting expensive, as well as the process I need to go through to adopt a house-elf. I'm willing to authorise payment from the potter accounts if you think the house-elf would be a valid expense for his welfare."

Kragnast picks up a file from the floor behind the desk and flicks through it. "I think that's possible, and house Potter no longer has any elves that you could call instead of adopting as it says here that they were forced to leave for survival."

Dan and Emma lean over and whisper to each other, before turning back to the goblins "I think we'd be willing agree to a similar agreement with the same additions."

"We will need you to take an oath that you are magical, but were not born magical. Assuming that pans out I don't see why you can't be accommodated."

"We run a dentistry in the non-magical world, if you have any contacts that already live there and are trained dental assistants, I think we'd be very interested in talking to them. I'm just thinking ahead hun."

An oath reading later and they are both back in the office, the goblins weren't idle either. They notice that Hermione and Harry aren't in the office either. Seeing them looking around Petunia assuages their fears, "I gave them a couple of Galleons and sent them out to get icecream or have a look in Gladrags. I have a feeling that we'll see them in the House-Elf placement agency or the bookshop though."

Dan laughs, "No bet on that one."

Getting the agreements signed was a simple process, Kragnast had bought a calming draft for Petunia so that she could use the blood quill. Dan insisted that the agreement had a 1 year renewal followed by a 5 yearly renewal so that if either party felt they were not getting a good deal they could exit without it costing them anything. He then had to run into muggle london to get the money that the goblins said would be needed for the adoption fees. As he was passing he saw that the children were actually at the ice cream place, though they both had new books. Once they had the money they needed, they went to fetch the children.

Petunia stepped beside Harry and started talking before she gave him a hug. "What book are you reading sweetiekins?"

Looking a little surprised at the intrusion and name she replied while lifting up the book "An introduction to runes and their uses. After Mrs Tonks showed us the pensive, and explained just how hard it is to make one, and that plate we used today, I wanted to find out more about it, and it was only 5 sickles in the second hand bookshop."

"Well mark your place and put the book away, we need to go and talk to some house-elves."

A similar conversation happened on the other side of the table, though Hermione was reading about the goblin rebellions mentioned.

With that the two families trooped off to the Placement agency and braced to be mobbed upon entry. As expected, they were indeed mobbed. After specifying that any prospective elves needed to be happy to learn how to live in the non-magical world, all of the older elves grumbled in a very house-elf way, and stepped back. Saying that they needed to be willing to learn to wear clothes that would fit in the muggle world, even if they had to buy them themselves saw a few more leave in tears saying they couldn't work for masters that want to give them clothes. Finally they ended up talking to the rest of them individually and eventually Harry and Petunia settled on a young female elf called Ceeley who had never had her own family before, and the grangers settled on a male elf called Soopy who had grown up with a family, but needed to be let go due to the drain on the owners magic after a child moved out. They also found out that it's possible for them to bind to a family rather than individuals but harder for the elf to form the bond as most wizards don't have enough magic pass a link through the elf to the rest of the family. They decided to head home rather than attempt the bond in the agency, though the agency worker ensured that they knew that if they did that the agency wouldn't be responsible if something happened between now and when the bond was done. The trip home was interesting as the elves had never had to travel by anything except popping so they were behaving like excited 6 year olds.

"Mum, if we got Ceeley a lightsabre and a little brown robe and got her to attach some string to a cap, do you think we could take her to London zoo?" Petunia snickered even as Ceeley looked adorably confused.

They arrived at the home and sat both elves down.

Petunia started, "Ceeley, I would like you to join my family with Harry. What I'd like to know is how you would like to bond with us. You are going to be a full member of the family, and not a servant. What do you want to do?"

"Ceeley would like you to bond with her."

"We know that, what we're asking you is how you want the bond."

"Ceeley want whatever bond you's willing to gives."

"Ceeley, we're willing to give you any bond that doesn't see us subservient to you. We want to know what you want."

"Ceeley not understand. Ceeley expecting to be told do this then go and do it."

Harry speaks up with an idea, "Ceeley, imagine we were young elves and you were explaining the different bond they could receive. Which one would you tell them was the best?"

"Oh that's easy, a bond of the heart."

"And how would we do that?"

Her ears droop, "Ceeley not sure, elder elves not tell her just that it exists."

Harry looks lost as Petunia turns to him, "How have you been getting on with your meditation?"

"OK I think."

"Can you feel your magic?"

"I think so."

"How about if we both link hands with her and then meditate on our magic and let it loose slightly?"

"I don't think it would hurt, but I've only done two months of school."

"Ceeley would you like to try?"

"Ceeley is willing to try."

"OK take our hands."

In another room a similar conversation is happening, although Hermione is getting upset with how little Soopy seems to know. Due to this they're still trying to come to an agreement when there's a sudden surge of magic and the light pops. They all rush into the other room to see what's going on.

Ceeley is grinning like a maniac and fair vibrating in place with excitement as Harry and Petunia are coming out of their meditation. "Ceeley like that bond, it feel like drinking from the sweetest pond while being praised for doing a really really good job." Petunia smiles and draws her into a hug. "Missy Dursley must nots do that it not proper."

"Ceeley it is proper for family, you're not just a house elf now, you're part of our family."

Soopy looks at his family, "If Soopy has choice, Soopy would like bond like that."

After a brief conversation about what was done, there was a second surge of magic and Soopy was walking around like he'd been electrified. Before being pulled into a hug by Hermione.

32. Chapter 32

Harry and petunia took the bus home with Ceeley.

"Missy Dursley, why do I have to come on the bus with you when I could be working?"

Petunia sighed as this was the third or forth time she'd asked, the lack of response from the other passengers gave her an idea, she reached up behind her hair and gently dislodged Nixie.

"Ceeley would you be able to look after Nixie for the rest of the trip."

"Ceeley would be happy to." While looking at her as though she was completely bonkers for trying to hand her nothing. A look that quickly changed to confusion when she felt something being put in her hands.

When that something scrambled up to her shoulder and climbed down her Tea Towel she made herself able to see magic. This worked for a moment as Nixie came back onto her shoulder and licked her face a tugging sensation in her eyes making her freeze as Nixie disappeared again. Hurriedly allowing herself to see magic again when she felt Nixie jump off her shoulder, she saw it running over to a chair with a wizard on it. Levitating it, she held out her hands to catch it when all it did is lick itself and fall back to the floor. Trying to levitate it a couple more times, Ceeley eventually gave up and started chasing Nixie around the bus to the laughter of the other travellers. One stop and a couple of minutes later, Ceeley finally caught Nixie before she realised that the laughter she could hear was directed at her.

"Ain't never seen a house-elf run around like that afore."

Absolutely mortified, she froze and made herself invisible. Nixie took this opportunity to struggle free of her grasp before licking her face and climbing down her back. Realising that she couldn't see Nixie anymore the chase was on again to the sound of passengers guffaws following her. It took another couple of attempts before she realised that she wouldn't be able remain invisible and look after Nixie at the same time.

Panting slightly, she returned to her Mistresses side. "I have Nixie mistress."

"Well done, if you let a little magic into your finger she'll happily suck on that. Though I'll have to remember that she seems to have enjoyed that." Indeed, Nixie was contentedly sitting in the almost animal's hands and sucking on one of it's fingers. She hadn't been able run like that for ages.

Eventually the journey finished and Petunia took Nixie back from Ceeley so that she could go invisible again. Ceeley wasn't sure what she was feeling, but she had a feeling that mortified would be it after having spent the entire bus ride visible to the passengers. She dearly hoped she wouldn't need to look after Nixie too often.

Once they got off the bus Petunia started talking to Ceeley to explain why she needed a house elf and why it was so important that she was able to be around in the non-magical world. Harry trailed behind them trying to control his rising anxiety at returning to a home that had no happy memories. He goggled and was brought up short when Petunia and Ceeley walked through the front door, which opened and closed on it's own as they approached.

He rang the doorbell.

Petunia heard the doorbell ring, "Oh blast, it happened again."

She went to let Harry in, "This is the sort of thing I was just talking about. I've got no control over when my magic does stuff yet, so until I learn control I need you with me to try and make it seem more normal so that I'm not a walking breech of the Statute of Secrecy."

"Ceeley understands, Mistress is very powerful."

Harry joins in with "I hadn't realised it was so bad for you, I don't think I've had anything like this happen yet."

"Master was a Mistress on the bus" Ceeley reminds him.

Harry looks sheepish, "Oh, I guess that's true. It is kinda the same thing isn't it."

"Ceeley thinks she is lucky that she had to learn to call magic and not how to hold it back, Ceeley would have broken many plates if it was the other way around."

The sound of the kettle boiling comes from the kitchen as Petunia takes a seat looking exhausted. She looks up as the teapot comes through and sits itself on the coffee table. "Erm, would anyone like a cup of tea?"

Ceeley looks at the teapot with an offended look on her face and quickly pops off and brings back a couple of cups.

"Ceeley, do you not want any?"

"It would not be proper mistress, Ceeley is a good elf."

"Ceeley, you are family, and I think you're going to have your work cut out making things like that look normal. As such you are to eat and drink with us, and you will need to learn muggle customs, damn they've got me using that word now, non-magical customs so that you have an excuse for being with us."

Ceeley's ears droop, "Ceeley understands, Ceeley has to be a bad elf to be a good elf and do what she's needed to do."

With that she conjures a house elf sized cup and sits dejectedly on the sofa.

Harry shuffles over next to her and gently pulls her into a hug, "We don't know much about house-elves, as I've only been going to Hogwarts for 2 months. But we do know people, and you're not just a house-elf you're also a person. I remember being taught about how servants used to be treated in primary school, Dudley still has the book we learnt it from in his room." He brushes the back of his head as something knocks against it, not noticing the amused expression on Petunias face.

"I'd like you to read it, and when you're finished we'll answer any questions you have. Will you stop that…!" he snaps the last bit turning his head to stare at the book he'd been talking about. With that Petunia titters quietly hiding her amusement by taking a sip of tea.

"Mum, why didn't you say anything."

"I thought you said that things like this weren't happening around you."

"Well they weren't."

"Ceeley is sorry, but Ceeley doesn't know how to read."

"Aunt Petunia, can we take Ceeley to see Karen, as she's a librarian so she must know how to teach people to read."

"Ceeley, can you make illusions?"

"Ceeley thinks so, but Ceeley has never tried."

"Well, once we've had a cup of tea and I've got changed, we'll go to the library and see if Karen would like to have some lunch."

Petunia walks up the stairs and freezes at the sight of her closed bedroom door. It was one thing to come up here every night when she had to, or afterwards when she knew that if she didn't then Vernon would take it out on Harry. He may have been a little shit then, no, he was never a little shit, she was just looking for a safe way to vent her frustrations. She took a step forward, and the door loomed in front of her menacingly. Her mind flashed back to the times that he'd dragged her in by her hair. She took another step forward and bloody handprints formed on the edge of the door frame, she flashed back to when she'd denied him shortly after she'd returned from the shelter and he'd beaten her until she couldn't resist him anymore and then carried her up to the bedroom. Another step forward and a demented laugh came from behind the door, and she heard the creak of bed springs, then heavy footsteps walked towards the door. She fell to her feet and fell into her fears while she cried.

Harry heard a thump from the landing and rushed up the stairs. At the top he saw his aunt kneeling on the landing crying in fear. A palpable aura of fear radiating from the blood stained bedroom door. He staggered back down the stairs.

"CEELEY! We need help!"

Ceeley popped in and collapsed at the top of the landing, "Ceeley can't, Ceeley sorry, Ceeley won't break one again, Ceeley is a good-elf."

Forcing himself forward, he grabbed Ceeley's arm and pulled her onto the stairs where he picked up her light form and staggered back down to the sitting room. Panicking he tried to think of where he could get help, Hermione was out as she knew as much as he did, but the hospital, there was help at the hospital. He staggered toward the front door, not noticing when it changed into the welcome witches desk.

A young boy appeared out of nowhere with no crack of apparition right in front of her, he was clearly distraught so she rushed around and held his shoulders.

"It's alright you're safe, you're safe."

"There's something at home, it's got mum and Ceeley, we need help."

Looking up at the duty Auror, she indicated with her head. With a look of understanding Auror Connie Hammer walked over pulling a calming draft out of her pouch and handing it to the welcome witch.

"Drink this, that's it, all of it."

Harry became aware of his surroundings as the calming draft affected his fear, forcing it away from his mind. A middle aged woman was crouched down beside him, and the welcome witch stood up to let the Auror work.

"It's ok, you're in St Mungo's, can you tell me what's going on?"

Harry explained.

"It sounds like a boggart."

Looking up at the welcome witch, "Would you be able to floo the office and get someone to take my place, I'm going to try to get him to take us back to where ever it is."

"Ok, where do you live?"

"Privet drive in Little Winging."

"Damn I've never been there. How did you get here?"

"I don't know, I was in the living room needing to get help, remembered the hospital and then here."

"OK, I want you to hug me tight, and then I want you to try and want to be at home as much as you needed to be here. As I can only help them if you can get me there, and if we take the bus they might be hurt." She hated to play on his fears, but if it was as urgent as it seemed he needed it, and the calming draft would be blunting everything except spikes of the worst fear, when she looked up from his face to check on the floo she saw a sofa.

"Well done, you did it. Look. Now where's your Aunt?"

"She's just up the stairs."

Walking up the stairs she felt the familiar fear that a Boggart produced, though far more powerful than the ones that she'd had to train with in to pass her exams. Peeking around the corner she took in the scene it was producing and retreated so that she could think of a scene that would counter it. This was always the important step and one that had been drilled into her, you can't help the victim if you charge in without a clear image, you just become another victim.

Getting an image she went upstairs as quickly as she should and with a shout she cast Riddikulus forcing as much magic out of her wand as she could. The bloodstained fingerprints turned to chocolate and the sound coming from the door was that of a child giggling. Petunia giggled and Connie laughed, and the creature retreated. Knowing it wasn't over until it was contained, Connie stepped around Petunia keeping the magic pouring from her wand she opened the door and forced the rest of the image on the boggart as it turned into a couple of children with a jar of chocolate giggling at her on the bed. With her free hand she dragged Petunia into the room to see and she started to laugh, a clear and pure laugh. With that it retreated under the bed, suddenly there were the sounds of a fight going on under the bed.

Exhausted, but not dangerously so, Connie lowered her wand and lowered herself to the floor and leant against the door.

33. Chapter 33

Petunia laughs weakly "We have to stop meeting like this Auror Hammer."

"Call me Connie, after this I think titles are too formal."

"Call me Petunia then. I think I'll use the guest room from now on and rent that one out" she laughs humourlessly.

"I can do that. Now for the record, can you describe what happened?"

"Sure, would you like a cup of tea?"

"I could drink a cup."

"Ceeley?"

A shaky Ceeley pops in "Mistress called?"

"How are you doing?"

"Ceeley has been better."

"Would you be able to get Connie and I a cup of tea, then would I be able to hug you while I tell the Auror what happened?"

"Ceeley can do that, though it's not proper for you to hug Ceeley."

"But you're a member of our family and I want to hug a family member and Harry's a bit big at the moment." Ceeley pops off.

"You're treating your house-elf very well."

"I'm new to the wizarding world so I wouldn't know how a house-elf is normally treated."

"Fair enough."

Ceeley popped back in with a couple of cups of tea and reluctantly sat in Petunias lap.

"We'd got home and had a cup of tea, and I came up to get changed when realised that this was the first time I'd be going into that room without Vernon around. I then froze and psyched myself up to go in like I've done hundreds of time before and I noticed bloody handprints on the door frame…"

"And you say this is the first time you've been back here since I saw you in the hospital?"

Petunia nods

"I've never seen a Boggart form that quickly. That's what the creature was called."

"Mistress is a very pure witch, not take much of her magic to match a lot of wizards." Ceeley intrudes from where she's starting to feel comfortable despite what she felt was proper, she felt like it was in the sleeping spaces that they chose, safe and comfortable.

Half an hour later Petunia is feeling settled enough to start moving again, as she gets up Connie groans and gets up too, then staggers slightly.

"Whoa, I definitely used to much magic there, can I use your floo I don't think I'm safe to apparate."

"I'm afraid it's not been connected yet. Ceeley, do you think you'd be able to take a note to St Mungo's or get Connie there?"

"Ceeley can do that, Hammies just need to take Ceeley's hand."

Connie took the house-elf's hand and was apparated to St Mungo's, making a mental note to mention that they could do that to Amelia in private she informed her temporary replacement that she needed to go onto desk duty as she didn't want to risk magical exhaustion.

Petunia tottered into the room that Marge usually stayed in when she came round. If she wants to see Dudley in the future she can bloody well make space for him at her house. She started to empty the wardrobe of all Marge's stuff onto the bed, once she was done she moved onto the drawers. As she got back in Ceeley popped back in and started berating her about doing an elf's job. Startled she pulled the drawer all the way out.

"It's fine, this is the sort of thing I'm allowed to do. If you want to do something, would you be able to move my clothes out of that room into the wardrobe in here?" Ceeley popped off to do just that.

As she leant down to line up the drawer she saw a bulging envelope with Vernon's handwriting on the outside. The envelope itself contained £500 in £20 notes, and on the front in Vernon's neat handwriting was the heading HP payments, and a list of additions and withdrawals. He seems to have been getting £20/week since some time in 1983, and some of those withdrawals matched up with days out or big treats for Dudley. The last entry on the envelope was in July. Sitting back against the bed she called for Harry and started to cry.

Harry heard his Aunt call for him so he put the Woman's Weekly down that he'd been browsing while she was busy and went up to see her. Wordlessly she hands him an envelope. It takes him a few moments to realise just what it is, and then he screams. A scream of inarticulate rage. A scream for all of the times that Vernon said that he was a burden. A scream for every time he'd been told that he couldn't have something because they didn't have the money for it. He was vaguely aware of his magic going out of control, and of someone holding him. But all he could do was scream in impotent rage. Eventually she collapsed and started to sob, deep wracking sobs and she was aware of the fact that she was been held, and that Ceeley was frantic. She glanced out of the window and thought at least it's a nice day.

Around the area Aurors and Obliviators pop in to try to contain the problem as the Magical detection monitors register an unprecedented surge in magic. All of them stop and look in awe as the wards around Number 4 Privet drive are clearly visible in a half dome above the house. It's only Amelia Bones turning up and shouting at everyone that gets them moving again. She then takes a moment to look in wonder at the wards. It takes her several tries and an inadvertent return to the office before she's calmed down enough to approach the house. Apparently Dumbledore wasn't kidding when he said he'd erected powerful wards to protect Harry. As she crossed the ward boundary, she felt herself being judged to see if she was a threat, taking umbrage at that she grumbled

"As if I'm a danger to him, you're more dangerous to him glowing like that where anyone can see." As if by magic the light from the wards blinked out. Marching up to the front door she opened it with a discrete unlocking charm. Not seeing anyone downstairs she made her way upstairs and entered the room where she could hear someone crying.

She coughed lightly before she started talking so that she didn't startle anyone, "I'm sorry to intrude, but I need to know what happened as we've got a full scale emergency out there."

Petunia responded, "A little history, for as long as she can remember, Harry has been told that she was a burden on the family, and that we couldn't afford things when she asked for them. While I was moving into this room after Connie dealt with the Bog something in the other room, I found this in there, so I gave it to her and I think everything that's happened over the last few months finally caught up." She hands over the envelope.

Glancing down the numbers Amelia realised what happened, taking the money out and handing it to Petunia she pocketed the envelope.

"I'm going to have to keep the envelope as evidence. If it's any consolation, I've filed the paperwork with the muggle police as a missing persons request, and you should be getting the crime reference information soon. The stated reason that we suspect he ran is that he thinks you've managed to gain access to a lawyer and give them evidence of child abuse, so there's also a warrant out for his arrest. I don't honestly think he'll ever turn up though."

With that she left to help and book an emergency meeting with the PM and Fudge.

It is mid afternoon when Harry and Petunia feel up to going out, she give Harry all the money from the Envelope, and Harry promptly gives her half back saying that she wasn't the only one that suffered. They find an old coat, woolly hat and a pair of gloves and have Ceeley dress up in them. She screams and cries and protests as Petunia gives them to her saying that she's a good elf and she doesn't deserve clothes. When the fact that the bond is still there she continues to pout and look confused. To which Petunia reminds her that she's family, and that's what they were both thinking of when they bonded with her. Petunia clamps down on her magic and they're off. They stop in a hardware store to buy a yale lock and a new front door key, and then they head to the library.

When they arrive, Harry dashes off with a shouted "Hi Karen" her hissed warning to be quiet following her to the children's section where she grabs an Asterix comic. Petunia instead stands at the counter.

"Hi Karen."

"Hi, are you OK?"

"Mostly, something happened with Vernon and he put me in the hospital. He's now missing, I presume gone as I was in that place when I got away from him."

"Oh my god, why didn't you let me know?"

"They don't have any telephones there and I couldn't have sent one of them to let you know."

"That's true. But still…"

"That's why we came today, you've been a good friend these last few months. I'm also trying to get you permission to know about that too. On that subject I'd like you to meet our new family member Ceeley" She gestures down to Ceeley. Karen leans over the counter and looks around blankly.

"Oh, right she's probably invisible. Ceeley, would you be able to go around to the other side of the counter with Karen and then make it so that only Karen and I can see you?"

"Yes Mistress." There a soft pop.

"She's behind you now Karen"

Karen turns around and then crouches down, "Aw, you're so adorable in that hat and coat… and you're not human."

"She's a house elf and we brought her into the family as a family member not a servant, didn't we Ceeley."

"Mistress did, I's believe you not, then clothes and still bond."

"Karen, I know you're a librarian and not a teacher, but if she comes to help you, would you be able to teach her to read and write? And maybe speak properly."

"I guess I can, is there any reason you can't?"

"I think it would be easier if Ceeley had to learn in order to do a job, as she's been trained like an old fashioned servant."

"Ah… I see."

"Ceeley, would you be able to come and help Karen with the library when ever you're not busy helping me. Also, would you mind helping her to visit our house or the Grangers if she wants to?"

"Ceeley would like to do that."

Petunia sends Ceeley to sit with Harry and read the comic with him, and they continue to chat quietly for the next 45 minutes until Ceeley informs her that she is starting to leak magic.

"Well it looks like it's my cue to leave. I'm staying at the Grangers, for a couple of weeks, would you like to come over for the evening?"

"Sure, what time?"

"Say around seven?"

"Sounds good, how am I going to get there?"

"Do you trust me to know where you live?"

"Sure, let me write it down."

"No need, I'll ask Ceeley if she could stay with you and follow you home so that she can bring you over and take you home again."

"Ohh. Oh. They can do that?"

"Yep, welcome to the twilight zone."

With that she collected Harry and Ceeley and went into the ladies toilet. After checking that it was empty she asked Ceeley to take them back to the Grangers.
A Meeting with Fudge
"Prime Minister, Minister Fudge. We have an ongoing emergency in Little Whinging and we need the help of the muggle government in covering it up."

"Yes, yes we know, that's why we're sitting here." Fudge interrupted.

"As I was saying. This emergency was caused by a discharge of accidental magic at the home of one Harry Potter."

Fudge starts to stand up "Accidental Magic? Why are we even here, just send out a couple of Obliviators and it's done."

"Minister Fudge, Sit Down! If you'd let me finish you'd find out why we need help."

Fudge sat down grumbling "I don't see what's so hard about it."

"Compounding the problem is the fact that Albus Dumbledore acting as Harry's magical guardian erected, and to quote 'Powerful wards to protect Harry Potter'

"These wards absorbed all of the accidental magic making them grow stronger. So strong in fact they were visible to everyone. Fortunately they've gained some level of sentience otherwise we would be talking about a long term breach of the Statute.

I have an idea that would work for this event based on a happy coincidence that happened with a less sever burst a few weeks ago that shorted out the power in the area, including something called a substation. I propose that we blow up the substation and Mr Major's government gets the news to publish a story about a visible something or other to cover the incident."

"We can certainly do that" John Major confirms.

"Great, let's do that meeting over."

"However!"

Fudge sulks back into his seat.

"We also need to be prepared for future events as Harry is already more powerful than Dumbledore. Harry's friend Hermione is only slightly less powerful. If this was the extent of the problem, I'd suggest keeping this in house. However there are three new magicals of comparable strength that are not witches or wizards, and so are still part of the mundane world."

"Well we'll just move them to a protected area then."

"We can't, for one, one of those magicals is Harry's legal and magical guardian, Petunia Dursley, born Evans. Secondly, due to the way our laws are written we have very limited power over them because they were born mundane."

John Major looks very interested at this.

"Well we'll just change the laws so that they're covered."

"We can't." Amelia ground out

"If you change the definition of a witch or wizard mundane borns no longer have to attend Hogwarts. If you include all magicals under the laws of witches and wizards you'll have a full on revolt in the Wisenamont as it will invalidate all the laws that they've passed for goblins, centaurs, veela, and the like. You can't classify them as beasts as then we'll be in contravention of the magically binding Magical Magna carta, in which King John gave us the right to rule as long as we upheld the Magna Carta."

"Fine, what can we do?"

"Firstly, we can ensure that all of them see mind-healers, and if they need treatment we pay for it. Secondly we have someone that is familiar with the mundane world visit both households once the children are back on at school, and give them a crash course in the magical world. Finally we need to either position a liaison here with real power to make decisions, or accept one from the mundane government."

John Major butts in "Thank you for your input, I think we have an action plan for today, expect to see it on the news" He checks his watch.

"This evening. I suggest that for the other matters, we reconvene in a weeks' time. I would like to request that your liaison suggestions are part of your police force, as it's likely that I'd place them in Scotland Yard with our police heads rather than with us. We have a lot to think about, and the sooner you can get the immediate situation under control on the ground the less work there will be for everyone."

With that the meeting ends, and John rushes off to get someone from MI5 to discretely contact this Petunia Dursley, and also to get a historian to put together a full listing of everything that's in the Magna Carta, and someone from the M Division in MI5 to see if they can track down the other Magna Carta.

34. Chapter 34

Once they arrive at the grangers they find that Emma has gone in to cover the afternoon shift while Dan stayed at home with Hermione and Soopy. It seems like Hermione has retreated into a book for some reason. Petunia has Ceeley transport her back home to get the paperwork she needs, and with Dan's permission spends the next couple of hours on the phone to various people. Including a tearful hour on the phone to Dudley as she had to explain that his father had put her in the hospital, and that he was now missing. They also made arrangements for Karen to visit. At 6:30 Emma arrived home clearly rattled while Dan and Petunia were watching TV.

"Are you OK honey?"

"No! I've had a terrible afternoon, although I think there was only one problem I couldn't deal with covertly. You know we had Mrs Peters in for her filling, I'd just finished drilling out the cavity and Rach was handing me the filling when the tooth healed over good as new just the way I was envisaging the way the filling would have to look. Not to mention all the minor cavities that we see during our normal checkups that aren't yet bad enough to be filled, but get marked down on the sheets. I reckon that I've done around £20,000 worth of cosmetic work accidentally."

Dan gets up and gives her a hug, "Oh honey, it's only going to be temporary while we learn how to control this."

"Emma, how much experience does an assistant need?"

"In theory none, in practice to be more than a trainee you need to have completed a course that requires a few o levels to get on. Why?"

"I met a muggleborn working in the hopping pot that was only there because they didn't have the qualifications to work in this world, and no one would hire her because of her ancestry. So I was thinking that if you hired someone like that, they could gain their qualifications and also cover for any accidents."

"It could work, though we'd need to see her qualifications from Hogwarts, as if they don't have good grades they wouldn't fit with us."

They went back to watching TV until Karen turned up with Ceeley.

They were then witness to an epic argument between house-elves as Soopy accused Ceeley of being a bad elf, and Ceeley defended herself. They let it go on for a while until Petunia interrupted and suggested that if Soopy thought that Ceeley was a bad elf, then maybe he would like to show them that he could do better over dinner. Predictably, Soopy agreed.

"Dan, would you be averse to eating in the garden?"

"Not at all?"

"Oh, good. Ceeley, would you be able to conjure a place to eat in the garden, as well as the plates and utensils and have it well lit. I'll get the kids and we'll come out for food when you're done."

Harry and Hermione were collected, and they trooped out into the garden where Ceeley had set up a nice table and chairs with a tablecloth and all the utensils they would need. Soft lights bobbed around the table and a warming charm made the area comfortable. Petunia seated Karen at the head of the table.

Crouching down in front of Soopy she extricated Nixie from her hair. "Now Soopy, when Chirpy gets older this is something your family may need you to do on occasion. You are not allowed to take Nixie away from this area, and I need you to keep hold of her, and look after her while we eat. I don't want to have the table or any chairs disappearing because you couldn't, understand? You also need to do your best to stay hidden so that Karen doesn't see you. As that's something you'd need to do dressed as you are if we were at a muggle or wizarding restaurant"

"Soopy understands."

She then takes her seat and indicates that Ceeley can begin serving.

After an entertaining dinner where Soopy ended up standing there holding Nixie in full view of the whole table, a disgruntled expression on his face. Petunia asked him if he understood why Ceeley needed to wear clothes in the muggle world now. She then turned the matter over to the Grangers, as Ceeley was her family and Soopy was theirs.

Hedwig swooping down and landing on Harry's shoulder signalled the end of the discussion and the group moved indoors to talk about things.

As the next day was a Saturday Petunia took the children to the Magical Farmers market with both the house-elves while Dan and Emma worked the morning at the Dentists. They spent the day looking at magical whitegoods and buying all the things that Ceeley said she needed for their house. They also bought a couple of sets of magical knives that would slice, dice, and mince with the correct insertion of magic. Magical lights for the house, and a magical fridge that used stasis runes rather than temperature to work.

All to soon the day had passed and they decided to eat out at the Hopping Pot. This saved cooking and also allowed Dan and Emma to speak to the waitress to see what she was like, and whether she had good enough grades for them to invest in. They discretely find out that they can floo to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade on order to visit Hogwarts.

The next day they floo up to Hogsmeade and walk up to Hogwarts to introduce themselves to Professor McGonagall

It was later on Sunday reading the notes on the lessons they'd missed while sitting in their dorm that Harry finally voiced something that had been building over the weekend.

"You know, I almost can't believe that he's gone."

Hermione looks up as Lavender looks over, her ability to hear potential gossip greater than Harry's ability to talk quietly, "Who's gone?"

"My uncle. You grew up in the magical world didn't you."

"Yep, our family are considered pure-bloods."

"I'm sure that you've been told stories of The Dream."

"Yeah, they've been used to get kids to go to sleep for years."

"Well, they're real, the dream part anyway, I've not read any of them so I'm not sure about the specifics, but I've been to the dream. And I saw my mum's memories of it. I'm calling my Aunt Petunia mum now, long story." She adds at the look of confusion on Lavender and Parvati's faces.

"The reason that I needed to be pulled out on Thursday is that he put her in St Mungo's."

Parvati scoots over and gives her a hug, and she stiffens momentarily. Lavender on the other hand brings her hands to her mouth, "Merlin, is she OK?"

"Physically, yes. They healed her broken bones overnight. I think we're both going to need to see a mind-healer though. She's going to be staying with Hermione's parents for a few weeks so that if there's anything wonky with her magic there's someone that can get her to a healer."

"Wait, she's magical? I thought your Aunt was a muggle?" Parvati jumps in.

"Oh, didn't I tell you guys? Yeah, apparently if you take a non-magical far enough into the dream, they become magical."

"Woah, I need to tell my dad." Lavender starts to get off the bed.

Hermione's hand snakes out and grabs her arm.

"You can't" she hisses.

"We shouldn't even be having this conversation, but can you imagine what would happen if some of the purebloods at this school found out that muggles could become magical? You're a good person and I believe that your parents must be good people to raise someone like you, but what about their friends?"

"I guess, but it doesn't feel right keeping something like this from him."

"It's not like them being magical is going to stay secret for long, but they're my parents and I don't want them to be lynched because the wrong people found out and decided to take matters into their own hands."

"I agree, before I got my letter I wouldn't have cared, but mum has been doing so much better since then. She's so different that I think she was forced into who she was rather than being that way before. She said that she'd tried to take us to a shelter."

"What's a shelter?" Lavender interrupts Harry.

"A shelter is short for woman's shelter and they were first set up."

"Can we have the 30 second version please Hermione." Parvati interjected before she could get going.

Hermione harrumphed good naturedly "They're places set up for women to go to when they're escaping abusive husbands."

"Oh, there's nothing like that in the magical world."

"Any reason why?"

"Most magicals will use a contract as part of their marriage, and part of the contracts prevents either party from leaving. So, either the contract gets broken or the witch is stuck there. Saying that, you hear just as many stories of wizards in that position because the witch they married is a bit to quick with their wand. On the plus side, our magic will eventually wear through a contract forced bond if we weren't willing to sign the contract in the first place."

Hermione shares a glance with Harry, "That's… good to know."

"Yeah, trick is that not all contracts are written. We're always taught to be careful of our words and magic, as people have been known to be spontaneously married by sharing vows that they both accept. The stories go around for decades because they can often ruin a political match. My Mum's still talking about when it happened with Andromeda Black, though she did also say that it might not have been as accidental as people want to believe, as they say that Bellatrix needed to take up the contract instead."

Harry smiled to herself as the conversation followed from that into another topic, then another further away from her problems. This is why she loved it here, Lavender and Parvati could be relied on to lend an ear and then take the conversation so far off topic that you didn't remember what you were having a problem with. She started with that realisation, she did love it here. It wasn't home, now that Petunia had changed, but he didn't have any bad memories here.

"Harry, what's on your mind?" Parvati asked.

"Just thinking about here and home, and how I love it here and how home never used to be home."

"OK, it's just that you changed while you were thinking deep thoughts."

With that they continued to chat until dinner time while also looking through the notes while the conversation wasn't on something interesting. Harry slid down the stairs as he hadn't changed back to she before they went down, to the laughs of the girls following him. Over dinner Ron regaled them with tales about the Troll that got in the school and how it's only because of McGonagall that they all spent the night in the great hall rather than having the Slytherins or Hufflepuffs wander into it on the way to their dorms.

35. Chapter 35

AN: I had trouble writing this chapter as my muse decided to desert me halfway through. - I'd like to thank my wife for helping me get it back. While it was gone, it occurred to me that Ron genuinely seems to be a nice person. But he doesn't seem to have a concept of personal space or conversational norms. We see this in canon with the way he sticks his foot in his mouth on more than a few occasions. Additionally, apart from his love of chess, he always struggles with his homework, leaving it to the last minute and getting people to help. So as someone with a bit more distance this time, and going through a period of involuntary social isolation, Hermione is more receptive to doing something with him. Then seeing his passion for chess, she decides to ask her parents if there are any resources that tie in general learning to chess. This prompted them to visit a school to ask a teacher who pointed them to the relevant resources, and then also pointed out that a child like that could also have other learning difficulties, and pointed them to those. And suddenly there's a box full of stuff and McGonagall gets a surprise. I might mention it in the next chapter if it seems to fit, but I make no promises.

Over the next week quidditch fever rose to a crescendo, crashed a couple of times, and then continued to rise towards the first game on Saturday. Harry started to get into the feel for it until Ron forgot what McGonagall had spent a few detentions at the beginning of the term drilling into him. A couple of grabbed arms later and the only time she was seen in the common room was on her way through going somewhere else. McGonagall managed to find the time to have a house meeting during the week, and people were able to bring up issues and get them resolved.

Albus sat at his desk, a 3 large piles of paperwork on one side of the desk. The Hogwarts one far larger than the other two. He held his head in his hands as he sighed. Fawkes trilled a song of commiseration, but even that couldn't lift the bone deep weariness that he felt. Apart from the Halloween feast which he was required to attend he hadn't had time to visit the great hall, or even see any of the promising students. Merlin, he only found out that something happened that required Harry to be pulled out of school for a couple of days when they came back on Sunday. What's this one? Complaint about Severus, well if he hasn't cursed anyone or assaulted them, then it's not as important as having Severus here is. Points appeal, what's this even doing on his desk, Minerva should be dealing with these, oh, she did and passed it on. She never used to do that. He was off to the ICW again at the weekend and he'd have to miss the opening game of the season. Couldn't they just give him a break?

Saturday rolled around and Hermione was sitting opposite Harry chatting and eating breakfast, "Sliver, Slice, and Dice, a home potioneers guide to ingredients and their preparations" open beside her. She noticed to people walking up behind Harry, and looked up to see who it was when the twins placed a hand on each shoulder. Harry froze, and then started shivering as the Twins said "Harry mate, we've spoken to Ron and he shouldn't cause you any more problems."

"You two are complete idiots, you came over here to tell Harry that you'd sorted out Ron, and before you even open your mouths you do exactly the same thing as Ron. ARRGH! Professor McGonagall!" Hermione exploded up and turned around, a loud cracking sound coming from the table and the twins went flying back into the wall and collapsed in a heap unseen behind her as she let out the frustrated scream. She finished turning towards the teachers table when she called for McGonagall.

McGonagall looked up at the loud Crack, then heard her name and started to hurry over, to an angry looking Hermione. Snape already up and moving at the first sign that trouble may be brewing at the Gryffindor table, his customary scowl on his face.

"15 points for assaulting a student, and a detention with me on Monday evening." Whatever he expected to happen it wasn't an angry 11 year old to round on him.

"And you, you call yourself a teacher, a professional. You should be ashamed of yourself. Your constant picking on and belittling Harry in your class, taking any opportunity to accost him out of class. Do you even know why he was out of school last week?"

"He probably needed to have his hair done." As soon as the words came out of his mouth he realised that it was the wrong thing to say as magic started to arc from Hermione grounding into the castle stones. Merlin, she must be on the level of Merlin to have a display of accidental magic like that and not collapse.

The rest of the teachers immediately started ordering the prefects to clear the Great Hall, Quirrell's eyes sparkling at the display being put off by the young girl. If he could get the stone he knew who the sacrifice for the ritual would be now.

Lost in her anger Hermione continued to advance on Snape, as she laid out in bald words everything she'd learnt about Harry's life before Hogwarts, and the entire reason why they had to leave Hogwarts last week.

Vainly, Snape fired off a couple of Stunners only to have the wild magic skewer them mid-flight. No, at this point it was either pit his reserves against hers and force her down or wait her out and deal with it when she ran out of magic. He thanked his lucky stars that the school was designed to absorb accidental magic surges like this, though it had been centuries since those requirements had been needed. As his back hit a wall, his vision narrowed down to the girls eyes as she continued to stalk towards him, hoping to see some sign of sanity in there.

Hermione was stalking towards the person who had hurt her first and best friend the most since school started, her anger piling all of the slights, knocks, flashbacks, breakdowns, and more undeservedly at his feet. It was then that a hand softly touched her shoulder.

"Hermione, he's not worth it. I don't want to lose you."

She turned her head to lash out at the person that dared to interrupt her. She found herself looking at the most glorious sight, as she saw Harry's brilliant green eyes. She reached up her hand and touched his cheek.

"You're OK." She said softly and then collapsed.

"I am, and I'm sorry for worrying you." He responded before collapsing beside her.

Snape slid down the wall, his adrenaline starting to flush out of his system making him shake. It took him 3 tries to cast a Patronus to McGonagall give her the all clear and that they needed Pomfrey. A pain in his leg made him aware of the fact that he hadn't escaped as unscathed as he thought.

Hermione awoke to the unfamiliar sensation of a hospital bed. As she went to get up Madam Pomfrey's familiar tone spoke out like a whipcrack.

"Oh no you don't young lady, you are suffering from magical exhaustion so you will be lying right there for the next couple of days until I'm happy that you're reserves are back to normal."

Laying back in the bed she asked "Can I at least borrow one of your books?"

Shaking her head, Pomfrey levitates a book over to Hermione, "Why you weren't sorted into Ravenclaw I'll never know."

A short while later Lavender came in with Parvati and, skirting the bed shooting fearful glances at Hermione, makes her way over to Madam Pomfrey. Parvati approached the bed somewhat apprehensively. As Hermione saw Lavender's hair she noticed that it had been done by hand, which was odd.

"S.. So, how are you doing?"

"Hey, I'm not going to bite." Parvati flinches at the slightly sharp tone.

"I'm doing OK, and I'm sorry. I'm still me."

"I know, but that display. Even though I'm from India where our legends of powerful magicals that could level mountains are much less recent. They're also not tainted by darkness. With Grindelwald and You-know-who both within living memory everyone associates power with them. While they know that the headmaster is up there with them, he doesn't display that power most of the time. Anyway I just wanted to see how you were doing, and let you know that people have started calling you Morgana. It looks like Lavenders done trying to let you have Chirpy. Did you know that he's an absolute terror when you're not around, we couldn't practice our charms or transfiguration homework yesterday, and I think the last straw for Lav was when he ate the charm she was using to do her hair. You know she's been using that religiously since she learnt how. Anyway, got to go."

This signified the worst four weeks of her life as she found out that there was something worse than being shunned for her intelligence. Being feared for her power. It attracted people she didn't really want to know, and the people she liked but didn't know well shied away. Harry was the only one that was unchanged, but even he was distant as he recovered from the trauma of the previous few weeks and the flashback that the twins inadvertently caused. For the first week she took a perverse pleasure in seeing Professor Snape flinch, and he seemed to be less antagonistic towards Harry, but that wore thin very quickly. The only teacher that seemed to be unaffected was Flitwick. So she did what she'd always done before and buried herself in her first friends books.

It was the middle of December when Hermione stalked from the great hall after lunch, her nose in one of her schoolbooks, as she tried to distract herself from her thoughts. It was getting intolerable, everyone was looking at her in fear, envy, or appraisingly. She'd even had the blond ferret trying to cosy up to her and gain favour even while calling her a mudblood. She stomped up the main staircase, never even noticing that every one was where she needed it. That wasn't the worst bit, no the worst bit was the whispers that stopped just as she came within earshot, it was worse than primary school. A startled yelp accompanied her walking through the portrait hole without stopping. At least there she knew what to expect. She sat down in her favourite spot and started taking notes. At least things in the Gryffindor dorm were starting to get back to normal.

She was brought out of her thoughts when the human pig's shadow fell across her work.

Ron's voice finishes the distraction "That was cool, how did you do that?"

"Huh?"

"Your parchment, quill and ink came downstairs right to where you needed it. It was so cool."

Hermione looked down at her hand and tried to remember getting her stuff out.

"So it did." She replies weakly.

"Wandless magic is supposed to be really hard, but you just did it. What's your secret, how are you cheating? I think it would be really cool to be able to do magic like that, classwork would be a breeze."

She looked at him with a bemused expression as he continued.

"I mean, I don't get why we have to do so much homework. Let's play a game of chess, you can be white."

It dawned on her that he probably wasn't actually deliberately rude, he just wasn't that intelligent, and was only really good at chess. Because of that his only way of being friendly was to play chess with people and talk about his favourite sport. Coming to a decision she put her book down.

"Sure, I've not played chess this way before, so bear with me."

Over the next couple of games she came to the conclusion that while he was better than her, he was only good for a casual player. The few times she'd played her uncle, she'd been much more badly outmatched. She smirked to herself as she suddenly thought of how she could leverage his obsession to improve his ability to learn and scribbled a note on her parchment.

She was rescued from her fifth game when his brothers came over and firmly informed him that she was looking a bit chess'ed out. They then sat down on either side of her and started to play twin tennis.

"Hermione dear,"

"We would like to apologise for our actions at breakfast last week."

"It didn't occur to us that we would be doing the same thing we'd warned Ron away from."

"We'd have apologised to Harry, but he"

"she"

"is always up in the girls dorm."

"So in addition to accepting our apology."

"We would be grateful if you would pass our apologies on to Harry too."

Hermione laughed as their expressions became more and more over the top morose as they kept speaking.

"Sure you're forgiven. I'm sorry that I blew up, it was uncalled for. It's just that with everything that happened the week before it was the last straw."

"No problems, it happens to all magical children occasionally, though from what we understand our magical breakdowns aren't usually as."

"I think what my twin is trying to say, is that we were told that you put on quite a lightshow."

"It was just unlucky that you had yours in the great hall, most people end up having it in the common room or a classroom."

"Very occasionally the library, we think that's why Pince is so strict."

She laughed again, a clear laugh full of amusement.

That seemed to signal the end of the problems in Gryffindor, and the effects spread through the rest of the school over the next few weeks.

The only noteworthy occurrence before the Christmas break was McGonagall receiving a large cardboard box full of muggle books, teaching aids for children with developmental difficulaties such as Dyslexia and Dyspraxia, as well as a variety of tools such as pen grips, a phonetic dictionary, books on different ways to record thoughts such as mind mapping, and more. Sitting face down at the bottom was a letter written on parchment.

Deputy Headmistress McGonagall

We recently received a note from Hermione asking for some books on chess including ones that linked chess to other subjects as a way of learning. She explained that she thought that one of her classmates may have difficulty learning normally, so she wanted to give him the books. We figured that where there's one there's likely to be more and as he wasn't getting any special help, maybe it was a problem that hadn't been identified in the magical world. Which given that we have only been recognising and finding ways to work with it since the 70's isn't that surprising.

In this box you should find some teaching resources, we've only included one of each device, though there are two copies of each book. Before you discard the idea out of hand, we were told that the books on how children learn and identifying special needs were required reading.

Kind regards

Daniel and Emma Granger

P.S. Don't worry about the costs. We're firmly part of the magical world now regardless of how we might have wanted it to be 6 months ago. So we've decided that the least we can do is make you aware of things that have been developed in the muggle world that may not have been identified in the much smaller community of the magical world.

Putting a couple of books to one side, she placed the rest back into the box and levitated it over to Madam Pince along with the letter. Who grumbled about muggle books, all while starting to sort through them interestedly. McGonagall almost laughed at that, no matter her distain for the muggle world, which given that she might be older than Dumbledore is probably understandable, her love of books trumps all.

"Irma, only one copy of those is for the library, I'm sure that you can rebind them if the covers are too out of place.", Irma's face brightens at the reminder that rebinding books is part of her duties in the library.

The arrival of the box at the teachers table distracted from the arrival of a much smaller box that arrived at the Gryffindor table.

"What's that?" Harry asked as he saw Hermione open the box.

"It's a thank you present for Ron, as he played a few games of chess with me as his way of cheering me up. This book is his Christmas present." She held up a book titled 'Games of the Masters, the greatest chess games of the 20th century', the rest I think will help him with learning. With that she got up and went over to Ron.

"Ron. Eww, swallow before you try to talk."

"S'rry" he swallows.

"Thank you for playing chess with me the other day. It was very thoughtful of you. Anyway, it got me thinking and I thought you might like these." She handed over the box.

He was about to object when he saw the word chess at the top of the box "Cor thanks, this is brilliant."

All thought of food was forgotten as he pulled out a muggle chess set and books with titles like 'The chess mysteries of the Arabian knights', 'Science, math, checkmate', 'Chess mysteries of sherlock Holmes', and 'Mathematics and chess', along with a couple of books for intermediate and advanced chess players.

That evening the twins walked into the common room after the first years initial curfew, saw Ron reading a book and talking to his chess set before walking out and in again a couple of times.

36. Chapter 36

As Petunia sits down in an armchair in the living room, Ceeley hands her a cup of tea.

Ceeley, Petunia decided, was a godsend. Especially now that she'd worked out how to glamour her features to appear like a Human Dwarf, and she was able to read a little. Without her the last few months would have pushed her to breaking point. As it was she'd still had so much to do.

The floo technicians wouldn't fit the new Floo because there was nowhere suitable hidden from muggle eyes to place it. So she'd needed to pay someone 15G to inscribe the runes needed to expand the pantry cupboard, she paid them another 10G to also do the same with Harry room, Her room, and the room that she was going to rent out. So what if the neighbours had started complaining about the TV signal being staticky since then, she now had private space to practice.

She then paid for a work-witch to come in and set up the new spaces so that the entry rooms opened up into a room that looked identical to the old rooms dimensions, which necessitated pulling out the original building plans because she hadn't decided to expand those rooms until the Wizard had asked if there was anything else she'd like expanded as she'd already paid for him to come out here. A Fitted wardrobe in each room lead to the door to the rest of the suite, the door in question had a magical lock that require the input of magic to open, which had cost her another 8G from the rune wizard, as he charged extra because she didn't have a floo and it was a muggle area.

Then the Floo people came back and fitted the downstairs floo, and when they found out that she was opening a B&B talked her into adding a Sub-Floo that was linked to the main Floo and could be controlled from the main floo to allow for incoming and/or outgoing calls, and incoming and/or outgoing floo visits. Then then upsold her to a second floo address that could be made public, and made a chime when called, which would cost 1G/month taken out of her business account.

So, then she had to go to the Ministry and register her B&B as a wizarding business in a muggle area. Which then lead to opening a business account at Gringotts and buying an appointment book. Incidentally, she was immediately booked out for then next 2 years by the goblins.

While that was going on she was also getting a handle on her duties as Harry's magical guardian. To which the first thing she found out was that the house Harry was born in had been turned into a National Monument, and that his previous Magical Guardian had had two years to contest it before they took control and cast preservation charms on it. Which then led her to a wild goose chase to locate their personal effects, which she's going to need to collect in a couple of days' time after the received the receipt for paying the 15G fee they demanded for 10 years worth of storage.

Between that she'd been learning how to control her magic, how to hold her magic in a quiescent state. How to teleport, she was now the proud owner of an apparition licence, oh how much time that saved. Though she wasn't going to tell the examiner that she didn't feel a squeezing sensation when she did it. It was also interesting to find out that the goblins couldn't apparate, it was something to do with the way their brains worked that prevented them doing the specific visualisation needed.

Throughout all of this Ceeley did all the cooking and cleaning without complaint, she also did the shopping, and found time to spend with Karen at the library. She'd even managed to buy a new TV and Video/DVD player, which she got delivered. They remained unplugged unless someone was actively using them. Surprisingly, after Karen had recommended that Ceeley watch children's TV like sesame street, it was Ceeley and a gaggle of elflings and young elves and one matriarch with the curtains closed. She wasn't entirely sure how that one had come about, but there we are.

That reminds her, she needs pick up Dudley tomorrow, and now she had the car insured she could drive there.

She summons a notepad and pen and makes a note, before going back to her tea and thinking.

After making the note and thinks back to the fun first visit she'd had with Arthur Weasley when he came around to start giving her lessons on the wizarding world.

Petunia heard the doorbell go, and dried off her hands before going to the door. When she opened it there was no one there, sticking her head out to look around she saw a multicoloured bum sticking up from the other side of the car.

"Hello. Can I help you?"

A man wearing a suit with Bermuda shorts stood up from the other side of the car.

"Good afternoon, I'm Arthur Weasley. Minister Fudge asked me to pop round to bring you up to date on the wizarding world and how to navigate it."

Oh, god, and he came dressed like that? "Well you better come in before you catch a death of cold."

"Why thank you."

"That's a lovely car you've got there. I've got a ford Anglia myself, and I've done a bit of work on it.

"Did you know that it's legal to get certain enchantments put on them as long as you register it as Wizard owned? Things like comfort, minor expansion, and fuel charms."

"Oh, your TV has a new moulded plug that they are trying to introduce, I haven't seen many of those around yet. How do you keep the TV working in a magical house? Oh wait it can't be that magical as we're in a non-magical neighbourhood.

"Is this a microwave, I've always wondered why they're called microwaves, as"

"Can you just stop!"

"Oh sorry, I got carried away."

"Look, if you really want to know about these things I can introduce you to Karen, she works at the library, I can lead you there after we do whatever you're here to do."

"Oh, that would be great."

"Sure, though you'll need to change your clothes."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Petunia just sighs, "Ceeley."

Ceeley walks in, "Yes Mistress Aunty."

"Would you be able to take some money from the purse and buy a seasonal fashion magazine that has Mens fashion in it please?"

"Yes Mistress." She walks out to the kitchen and there's a quiet pop as she leaves.

"Was your house-elf wearing clothes?"

"Yes, it's necessary to maintain the statute of secrecy, as she passes as a child or a dwarf if someone sees her accidently."

"That's ingenious, how did you persuade her to accept them?"

"We're getting off topic again. Why exactly are you here?"

"I've been asked to give you a rundown of the wizarding world, important customs, and laws that you need to be aware of."

"OK and you couldn't have called ahead why?"

"You're not on the floo?"

"I'll show you how to use a telephone before we go out, and while we're out I'll show you how to use a payphone. If you need to go to a muggle residence in future you should use one to call ahead."

She did arrange to have the car enchanted with comfort and fuel runes, as she figured they'd be discrete enough to pass an MOT.

She sat back again and continued to reflect on the things she'd done. Floo check, Apparition licence check, B&B check, Potter family property check, meditation check. Oh Karen's coming over for dinner.

She gets up to cook dinner for the first time in a while.

"Mistress should not be cooking, it's Ceeley's job"

"My job" Petunia corrects absently as she summons some carrots from the pantry.

"My job. Mistress should still not be cooking."

"Ceeley, I like to cook, it's something that helps me relax. We've had this conversation before. You are most welcome to help me if you want, I'm making a shepherds pie so that we can just stick it in the oven when we want dinner."

"Yes Mistress, I'll do the meat."

"Ceeley, would you like to come with me to get Dudley tomorrow, I'm taking the car?"

"Ceeley would like to do that."

"I would like to do that."

"I would like to do that."

"Thank you, I'd like you to look after Nixie while we're travelling then, so that she doesn't accidently distract me on the way down."

They settled into cooking together, although Ceeley still managed to do the lions share of the work.

Once Karen arrived they got chatting and caught up on the day. They then moved into the living room and put on the TV to something mindless to pass the time.

It was at around half eight when Petunia's world tipped on it's side again.

"I want to try meditating through The Dream again, and if I can maybe hold a bit of a conversation. Would you mind staying and keeping an eye on me?"

"Sure, as long as I can borrow a bed."

Petunia laughs, "Sure, if nothing else Cee can conjure you one for the night."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"Think nothing of it, with how often you've been round here over the last few months you might as well move in" Petunia joked.

"Only if you're serious about that."

"Well, it's nice to have you around at night, as it helps me not dwell on that. But what about your flat, and won't it cause problems with your boyfriend?"

"I rent the flat, so it would only take a couple of weeks notice. And I don't have a boyfriend."

"Why not, a lovely girl like you, I can't believe that you're not beating them off."

Karen looks uncomfortable as if she's expecting something bad to happen "I don't have a boyfriend because I'm a Lesbian."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a while as Petunia processed that.

"You know, I think I'm supposed to be uncomfortable or disgusted or something by that, but at the moment it's not the most surprising thing that I've found out in the last 6 months. Merlin, my nephew is also my niece, and I've got magic. Hell I still don't understand how you can bear to be friends with me."

"That's because you're a lovely woman, the fact that you're stunning is just the icing on the cake."

"I'm, I'm flattered that you think so, but at the moment I'm still healing, so even if this is something I wanted, I'm not ready for any relationships yet."

"I'm not friends with you to get into your pants, I like who you are."

Petunia gestures to all the photo's on the wall, "But I'm a terrible person, look at those photo's, there's not one that has Harry in them, and even now I've still not got any pictures of him? Her? Them. I've not got any pictures of them. I could have got a camera while we were at Diagon, or at Halloween, and got a few pictures. But I didn't."

"Before Halloween, what do you think would have happened if you did get a camera? I'll tell you what, your Ex would have taken it from you and then beaten you for even thinking about having photos of them. And Halloween? Christ woman, if you weren't magical you'd have been in hospital for months, and in physical therapy for months after that.

"Do you know what I see? I see a strong woman who turned bitter because of the circumstances she had been forced into. Never in that time did she give up and stop trying to protect one of her wards. As soon as the opportunity arose she bounced right out and tried to get as much freedom as she could. She put her own life at risk to try and pull her ward out of a dangerous situation and was rewarded for that with the ability to use magic. Yes, she still has doubts, but that's because she's still healing, and will probably still be healing for years to come.

"You're beautiful, kind, loving, hard working, intelligent, and my friend."

Every point that Karen made felt like a hammer blow to Petunia, as she was absolutely certain she was talking about someone else. It felt like something broke under those blows and she just broke down crying. She felt Karen kneel down in front of her and draw her into a hug and she clung on for dear life as she cried, cried for the life that she'd lost, cried for the things she'd been done, and cried because she didn't think she deserved the things that Karen had said about her.

Karen just held her until she was cried out, and softly called for Ceeley and asked for a damp cloth and a glass of water, and then do food.

It was around halfway through the dream, and Karen was sitting cross legged opposite Petunia in her suite of rooms. Petunia opened her eyes and looked Karen in they eyes before she clearly but softly said "When would you like to move in?"

"Tonight?" she whispered back, almost afraid that she imagined it.

"OK, ask Ceeley to help you get your stuff in the morning and we can work out where you'll sleep once I get back with Dudley. Make that ask Ceeley to help in the afternoon, or when you get home from work as she's coming with me. Of course home is now here. I'll leave you my key when I go."

37. Chapter 37

AN: When I was writing this, I tried to think of how someone who was consitantly near the bottom of the class in primary school, so much so that Harry was punished for cheating when he got higher marks. On top of that he is also overweight, but strong.

Now in my opinion someone like that would probably have avoided bullying by being the bully, but Vernon wouldn't have been able to avoid the questions about his poor grades. When I was in school at around the same time, I had certain problems in class that meant that I was classified as "slow", because of that I was put into a special class where we were taught different ways of approaching problems and how to use a phonetic dictionary. Years later I can look back and realise that my problems at school were probably more down to depression caused by Gender Dysphoria, but that's not what they knew at the time.

So you have this underachieving boy who's coping by eating and being the bully, and suddenly they get the news that their father has run away after putting their mother in hospital. They end up spending time talking to the School Counsellor about it, but the brief period between getting the news and his equibrilium back he quicly goes from the bully to the bullied. From observation and reading once a bully is in this position it's very difficult to become the bully again until there is someone new to bully.

Fast forward to Christmas and you could see the result that I outlined below.

Now in Canon, with Vernon there, his low grades probably just prompted Vernon to open his wallet, and any bullying problems would have been met with tough love.

Petunia woke up feeling rested the next morning in her new bed, she tried to remember when she came to bed, but was drawing a blank. The comfortable feeling of someone lying on her chest made her pause. Looking down she saw Karens hair fanned out over her chest while her hand gently cupped one of her breasts.

"Ceeley" she called softly

A soft pop, "Yes mistress."

"Did we fall asleep while meditating?"

"Yes mistress."

"Did you put us to bed?"

"Yes mistress."

"Why did you put us in the same bed?"

"Mistress said that Karen could move in tonight last night, and muggle TV says that when people say that they're moving in together they mean sleeping in the same bed."

"Thank you Ceeley, would you make both of us a cup of coffee?"

"Yes mistress" and there was a soft pop.

Petunia gently shook Karen, who mumbled "Just five more minutes mum."

"Karen, I need to get up."

"Mmmph, in a minute."

"Karen, please, I'm trying not to freak out here."

"Ok, Ok, I'm moving." Then she rolled over.

Petunia scrambled out of bed and perched on a chair, her arms around her knees as she tried to examine feelings.

As Karen rolled over, she opened her eyes languidly and then felt the bed on the other side of her move. She thought back to last night, nope they had nothing to drink, she hadn't gone out, she had spotted Petunia while she meditated, but being invited to move in last night was the last thing she remembered. Realising that waking up with another woman might not be on the top 10 list of things Petunia wanted to do this morning, she turned over and groggily sat up on the bed.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm… I'm not sure."

"Look, I didn't mean to end up in bed with you."

"It's ok, we both fell asleep while meditating and Ceeley put us to bed."

"Huh!" Karen intelligently uttered as her brain tried to reboot.

Ceeley popped in and handed both of them a mug of coffee.

"I didn't think you drank coffee."

"I don't typically, but it's something I used to do if Vernon had a bad night and I was up early the next morning. It allowed me to get through till everyone had gone before I had a nap."

"Look, I'm sorry, I understand if you didn't want me to move in anymore…"

"No, it's not that, I just don't know what to think. When I woke up I was comfortable, you were lying on me, and you just fit there. I don't remember the last time I woke up feeling comfortable when there was someone else in bed with me, and it's confusing me."

Ceeley pops in "Mistresses is silly, the heart knows what the heart knows, and you's magic now, so your magic knows what your heart knows. You's thinking big thoughts when the heart is all about small thoughts. Mistress will also need to be bathing soon otherwise mistress will be late for drive. Ceeley have breakfast ready when you come downstairs."

Karen breaks the silence, "She's not wrong. If there's one thing I've learnt while teaching her to read, they're not stupid. Simple maybe, but not stupid. When I was doing my degree, well one of them anyway, I met a lot of children like that, they understand a lot, but they struggle with abstract ideas. It's fascinating, as it allows them to get a very clear picture of some things, but then they just don't get the complexities of other situations that we take for granted. Wherever they developed, they probably didn't have the need to be able to do long term planning or it was selected against due to environmental factors. If they were human I'd probably put them on the Autistic spectrum somewhere."

"You've mentioned your degree before, and now you said you have more than one. How many do you have?"

"Three, the first was in Librarianship, and then I landed a job at the Little Whinging library, when it became clear that I had no chance of moving to a better library due to the rampant sexism in place, I did a degree in mythology. Finally, I completed a degree in child psychology last year, which I had hoped would allow me to move to a better position again. But it didn't help, and I don't think I'd take the position now if one was offered.

"Anyway we better be getting up otherwise we're going to be late, I also need to get home to get…"

Ceeley popped in with some clean clothes of Karen's "Ceeley has brought Missy Books some clean clothes for today."

"Ceeley"

"Yes, Missy Books."

"Just because I'm moving in doesn't mean that you can forget your lessons."

"Yes Missy Books… I… understand."

"Well done, it will get easier the more you do it."

"If she's Missy Books, what's your name for me?" Petunia enquired

"Missy Magic" Ceeley said in a tone that suggested that it was the most obvious thing in the world.

4 hours later she was in the outskirts of Canterbury following the local signs for Smeltings.

"Ceeley, do you want to give me Nixie back so that you can use your glamour?"

"Yes mistress"

"We're going to be in public, so you need to try and remember how to refer to me in public."

"Yes Mis… Aunt Petunia."

"When we get to the school, do you think you could check if we're close enough to home that you think you could pop there safely. Only if you think you can, could you see if there's somewhere discrete that we could apparate back to and then walk to the school from?"

"… I think I understand, mis… Aunt Petunia, you want to find a place where we can appear to have driven to?"

"Well done, that's it exactly."

"Ceeley… I think I can do that."

"Just do your best, don't worry if it's a mile or so away, it looks like it's getting congested here so I can probably say that I didn't want the problems with traffic."

Half an hour later she'd finally found a parking space nearly half a mile away from the school. As she got out of the car she commented to Ceeley, "I think you may end up being on the 'or so' end of that distance."

As she walked to the school Ceeley disappeared from the car in search of a discrete place to return to.

When she got to the school she went to the reception rather than waiting with the other parents. After showing her magically updated driving licence, the receptionist directed her to take a seat while she looked up Dudley's file, then made a phone call.

A short while later a middle aged man with slowly greying hair came through a door.

"Mrs Dursley?"

"Ms please."

"Certainly, sorry about that. You look younger than I expected."

"I get that a lot, it's part of what caused… problems… with Vernon."

"Ah, yes, sorry about that. Would you follow me, we have a few things to talk about before you see Dudley."

She is lead to a comfortable reception area deeper in the school.

"Ms Dursley, I'll be frank. I don't think that Dudley is a good fit in a school like this. His grades are subpar and the according to his file the only reason he got a place is that his father was an Alumni of the school. He has also been bullied quite badly about his weight since November. Now we could put him in special needs and give him the attention that he needs to bring him up to standard, this would cost an extra £600 per half year. I also fear that he has taken to eating in order to cope with the problems, both at school and with the news that came in November. My professional recommendation as the school counsellor would be to look around for alternative schools where his lack of ability can be more easily catered for.

"Now obviously, I feel that if he is given the special classes, and he can regain his equilibrium he could well thrive in the environment here. Graduating from Smeltings would also help him later in life as we are one of the top 10 schools in the country. I'm sure that as a parent you want the best for your child, and we can be that for him."

"Thank you for letting me know Mr…"

"I'm sorry, your beauty made me forget my manners, I'm Mr Chedworth, the school counsellor."

"Again, thank you for letting me know Mr Chedworth, we will have a frank discussion over Christmas and see what happens in the new year. I believe that we're paid up for the year, so I'm afraid that you'll need to enjoy his presence for the rest of the year regardless."

"Very well, if you follow me I'll take you to where he's waiting."

He then leads her to the entrance hall where Dudley is sitting with a scuffed satchel beside him, evidence of tears on his cheeks.

"Dudleykins." Petunia calls.

"Mum!" Dudley looks up at her voice and thunders over to her enfolding her with a hug.

"You came!"

"I did sweetie, I did, and as long as I'm able I always will."

"I thought you were going to disappear like they said dad did."

"I know honey, I know, let's get you home and we can talk about it in the car. If you're lucky we'll stop off to get something to eat."

With that she led him off to where the car is parked.

38. Chapter 38

When they got back to the car, Dudley's first introduction to the changes that happened in Petunia's life over the last 6 months.

Once Dudley was seated in the back seat of the car, Petunia turned around to face him "Dudley, this is Ceeley, she is a house-elf"
As her race was mentioned she dropped her glamour.
Dudley was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke
"Mum?"
"Yes dear?"
There was another long pause before he said anything again.
"Mum?"
"Yes dear?"
"What is that?"
"She is Ceeley, she's a house-elf we adopted."
"Is she some sort of Dwarf?"
"No honey, she'd a magical house-elf."
"You said the M word."
"I did."
"But isn't the M word a bad word?"
"No it isn't, you daddy thought it was because of a bad experience with my sisters husband."
"But you said it was bad too."
"You've been bullied at school haven't you?"
"Yes" he sulked
"Did you do anything for your bullies to get them to stop for a while?"
"Yes" he said in a small voice.
"I know it's hard to admit to that, but your father bullied me too. So I did things that I'm not proud of, and I've hurt both of you in different ways."
"So is magic still bad?"
"No Dudders, magic isn't bad. Given that I have magic it would be... bad of me to say it's bad."
Dudley's mind retreated into unconsciousness as the revelation that his mother was magical was one thing too far after the agonising wait to see if anyone would come to collect him, followed by the last conversation.
"Well that went well."

They're almost at the M25 when Dudley wakes up feeling refreshed after his faint turned into sleep. Ceeley turned around to check on him while Petunia was driving.

"Mum! There's a Gremlin looking at me"
"Ceeley is a house-elf and she's a member of our family."
"It's not a gremlin."
"Ceeley not know what a gremlin is, but Ceeley knows she is a house-elf."

The journey to the next service station passed quietly, that changed once Dudley saw that they were pulling into somewhere he could eat.

"Mum, Mum! Can we go to little chef?" He called excitedly
"No Dudley, we can't afford it."
"But I really want Fish fingers."
"I know you do Dudders, but we can't afford them. I can make you fish fingers for dinner."
"But I want Fish Fingers Now!"
"How about we get you something nice in the food court?"
"No! I want to go to little chef!" tears started to appear in his eyes
Petunia saw all the signs of an epic melt down starting and was about to capitulate when suddenly all the noise cut off from the backseat.
"Ceeley is sorry, but Ceeley was taught how to deal with tantrums in case her family had small children. So Ceeley is protecting your ears while tantrum passes."
"Oh god, thank you Ceeley, I was about to take him to Little Chef, I'm a terrible mother."
"Mistress can't be a terrible mother, Ceeley has seen how you deal with Harry."

They waited in the carpark until Dudley's tantrum eventually petered out after a long half an hour. Petunia reflected that it was infinitely easier to deal with when he couldn't hurt himself and she didn't have to listen to his tantrum. She did allow him to buy a copy of the Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe though, as well as a small bag of Jelly Babies for when he got home. He then enjoyed a gammon egg and chips while she had a sandwich and a cup of tea for half the price Little Chef would have cost. She chatted to him about how he'd got on at school, he hated it; what he thought of the subjects, they were too hard; and if he had any friends, they'd all deserted him during November.

When they got home she opened the door and immediately thought that things were about to get worse when the chorus of "Good afternoon Mistress Magic" came from the sofa with so many elflings sitting on it watching children's TV, but Dudley surprised her by just plopping down on the floor against the sofa.

Just as she sat down with a cup of tea, she heard the Floo going.
"Mummy, what's that noise?"
"It's a Floo call darling, I've just got to grab it. Matriarch-elf, would you mind trying to explain to my son what the Floo is please?"
While Dudley started to deal with the fact that there were a lot of house-elves sat on the sofa behind him and he hadn't noticed, as well as the fact that one of them was trying to talk to him; Petunia went through to the Floo Room and answered the Floo.

"Good Afternoon Petunia, I hope this isn't an inconvenient time." The head of Arthur Weasley appeared in the flames.
She sighed, "No, it's fine I just got Dudley home from school. How can I help you?"
"I'm really sorry to ask this, especially at such late notice, but Molly and I are going to visit Charlie in Romania for Christmas. Ginny was going to visit her Aunt Muriel for the week, but I've found out that she's come down with a mild case of Spattergroit, and she looks terrible. However, there's no way I can let Ginny anywhere near her as it's especially bad for children who haven't built up enough magic to help fight it off. I've tried our purely magical friends and they're unable to look after her, so would you please be able to do so?"
Petunia sighed, after implying that he had nowhere else to turn what else could she do, "Sure, when do you need me to take her?"
"Now if possible, our portkey leaves at 5:30 and if we miss it it's gone."
"Ok, send her through."
With that she activated the rune to allow people through without a password. Ginny and Arthur stepped through and Arthur gave her a quick hug before turning to go with a quick apology for stopping by so quickly.
"Hi Ginny, I'm Petunia, do you like fishfingers and chips?"
"I don't know, I've never had them."
"Then we'll find out tonight, until then why don't I take you through to the TV and you can watch that with Dudley while Ceeley and I sort stuff out."
"What's TV? I know dad talks about it, but I still don't know what it is."
"Why don't you come through and find out."

She lead Ginny through to the living room with the children's TV on, and as she got there she realised just why it was on so early. It's Christmas, so they extend the time it's on for.
"Dudley, this is Ginny, she's going to be staying with us over Christmas as the person she was going to stay with is ill. Be nice, otherwise I'll send you to your room. And here's the Jelly Babies that we bought earlier, why don't you share."

Petunia settled down to drink her tea, as Round the Twist came on, and Ginny asked Dudley how they got the people in the box. Which then started a heated discussion on things that the other should already know. At least she was bringing him out of his slump. Oh, hell, they're going into muggle london tomorrow for dinner.

"Ceeley."
"Yes Mistress."
"How many times do I have to tell you that we're family, so I'm not your Mistress." Petunia ignored the shocked gasps coming from the elves on the sofa.
"At least once more Mistress."
Petunia sighed, "Would you be able to buy a couple of sets of girls clothes for Ginny so that we're not stuck here over the next week, and include at least one pair of jeans."
"Yes Mistress."
"Get out of here." Petunia mock lashed out, as Ceeley disappeared with a cheeky grin on her face.

She sipped her tea grateful for warming charms, and just tried to relax for a few minutes. There was so much to think about. She glanced at the clock, Karen will be home in a couple of hours. Once round the twist finished, she lent forwards.

"Dudley, Ginny. There's some things that we need to have a quick chat about. Ginny, if I give a couple of Galleons to Ceeley tomorrow, can you show Dudley around Diagon Alley, staying out of the Cauldron and Knockturn?"
"Yes, I'm a big girl. I can show him around."
"Ok, Dudley, we're going to be going out for dinner in London afterwards once we've picked up Harry and Hermione."
"The freaks coming home for Christmas?"
"Dudley! You are not to use that word again, or do you thing that Ginny and I are freaks too?"
"You're not a freak you're my mum!".
"What about me?" Ginny says softly, on the verge of tears or an explosion.
"You're not a freak either." Ginny smiles at Dudley.
"But what about all the stuff he used to do?" Dudley continues.
"That's called accidental magic, I do it, I bet Ginny can tell you stories when she or her brothers did it, and Harry does it."
"Yeah, I remember when mum wanted to put me into a hideous pink dress with frills, and I turned it bright green."
"Ok, I'll try not to call anyone a freak."
"Thank you. Finally, I've got a familiar that lives off of magic, she's also invisible to most people, so she might eat some spells that you've got on you. These spells will be hiding bad memories that wizards suppressed when Harry had accidental magic due to the stress she was under."
"I'm don't know what you mean."
"Don't worry about it, if you remember anything bad, just come and see Karen or myself, and we'll talk you through it. Is there anything I'm forgetting?"
"Mrs Dursley, where am I going to be sleeping?"
"Tonight, I was going to put you in Harry's room. Once she's home tomorrow we'll see how you and she get along and sort stuff out. Oh, and I'm running a B&B to make money now, and we've got some goblins as guests. If you see them, be polite and there won't be any problems. Their culture is rather more physical than ours, so unless you want a fight don't insult them."
"I thought The Fr… Harry was a boy, but you keep saying her." He catches what he was going to say when he saw the look on his mothers face.
"You know how we described accidental magic earlier?"
"Yes?"
"Well something happened on Harry's first day, and her magic changed her into a girl so that she could visit Hermione. Since then she's spent more time as a girl than as a boy. We're not sure why yet."
"Wait, who is Harry?" Ginny asked confused.
"She is my nephew, niece, Harry Potter."
Ginny broke down crying, "I'm never going to get my wedding now." Coming out between the sobs.
"Dudley, your sitting right next to her, give her a hug like you wished I could at school."
Awkwardly he gives her a hug.
"When she's calmed down a bit, why don't you show her your room and put your console together."

Once the elves started popping out Petunia thanked the Matriarch, "Thank you for explaining that to Dudley."
"It's no problem Missy Magic, you's allowing elflings to watch young humans."
"It's not a problem, is it helping?"
"Yes and no. They's picking up numbers, but also bad habits."
"Well I'm glad it's helping."

With that she settles down to relax, while she listened to the faint noise of the children playing upstairs.

39. Chapter 39

Karen comes in at 6 and sees Petunia sat in the armchair with the TV and Video unplugged. She must be feeling stressed if she's taking that precaution. She sees her look up at her and a look of relief, hope, and something else cross her face. The teapot floated out of the kitchen with two cups and the kettle pouring cold water into it while steam came out of the pot. A steam of tea leaves followed it.

"Stressful day?"

"God, I wish. It wasn't too bad until an hour ago. Arthur's daughter Ginny is staying with us for a week as a last minute thing. Anyway, it was all going great, they watched TV together, then I sent them up to Dudley's room to set-up his console and play games. It sounded like they were both getting along fine. Then I hear Dudley start to have an epic tantrum and loudly accuse Ginny of cheating, she denies it. Then he accuses her of doing 'freaky' stuff because there's no way a girl who's never played a game before could do that. So then she punches him on the nose. By the time I get up there Ceeley is going spare and they're both a bit bloody and bruised. Which is when my magic started acting up again and they ended up hanging in the air as I verbally tore a strip out of both of them. I didn't know what else to do, so they're currently sitting on the bed in my display bedroom with Ceeley supervising, and I'm trying to regain control over my magic."

Karen did the only thing that she could think of and squeezed into the armchair with Petunia and gave her a hug. Petunia fair melted into her and started to cry the stress of her day out. She then told her how the rest of the day went while Karen stroked her hair while telling that she'd done really well, and she'd done her best. It didn't take long for her to cry out and get her emotions under control. They then enjoyed their cups of tea, which Petunia had to actually magic up to them to her relief.

"Shall we go up and check on the little terrors?"

Upstairs, Ginny and Dudley were sitting on opposite sides of the bed facing away from each other. Ginny observes, "At least your mum didn't use a sticking charm."

"What's that?"

"It's a charm that sticks two things together until it's cancelled or dispelled. Mum uses it to ensure that we don't leave as soon as she turns her back."

"That sounds rough, I think this is actually the first time Mum has done this to me."

"You must have been an absolute angel."

Dudley laughs, "Na, they just wouldn't punish me."

"That doesn't sound right."

"It was easy to deflect the blame onto Harry, as dad hated him for some reason."

"Where is your dad?"

"I found out just after Halloween that he'd been abusing Mum, and run away. Mum said that he was bullying her on the way home, so maybe it's a bit like that."

Ginny turned onto her knees and hugged him, "That's rough, even if we fight all the time we know that we're still there for each other."

"Thing is, I don't think I know how to not be like that."

"Tell you what, if you're doing something bad I'll hit you."

"Yeah, OK you've got a good punch there."

"Six brothers, it was either learn to fight back or lose out."

Ginny sat down next to Dudley and they started just chatting. Unseen Karen and Petunia turned away and went back downstairs.

After a dinner of home made fishfingers and chips, that Dudley claimed were better than Little Chef, they showed Ginny how to access the bedroom that she'd be sleeping in, Dudley trailing along. After a Dudley tantrum was pre-empted by Ginny, wonder of wonders. Petunia explained that he couldn't have one as they lived in a non-magical area and as he couldn't open the doors himself, he would need a different mechanism which they weren't allowed to use. Again Ginny stopped the argument before it got going by walking out, closing the door behind her, then opening it after a couple of minutes looking visibly strained and walking in. She then challenged Dudley to do the same, 15 minutes later they opened the door for him.

"Why can't I be magical?" Dudley pouts

"You have to be born magical." Ginny responds as if it's the most obvious thing ever.

"Mum wasn't, it's one of the things she used to complain about."

Ginny spins to Petunia, "You weren't?"

"I was about as magical as Dudley is."

"But, how?"

"A dangerous accident in the night that almost cost Harry and I our lives."

"Does that mean I could become magical?" Dudley pleaded.

Petunia looked at Karen for help, "Maybe, I want to become magical myself," Petunia looks surprised and pleased at that.

"but I've seen how hard it is for your mother to just stay here, I can't imagine how hard it would be to reproduce what she went through. Also I could never ask her to risk herself just so that I could have magic. Could you honestly say that you want magic badly enough to ask your mother to play chicken with a lorry?"

"But, if I get magic I don't have to go back to school."

"Harry is still going to school, and Ginny will be going next year. So even if you had magic you'd still need to go to school."

"But that's not back to school."

"Why don't we go to your room and you can tell me about it." Karen leads Dudley out to his room.

"Ginny, while you're staying here we'll be going into the muggle world a lot, so I asked Ceeley to get you some new clothes, they're not the best clothes, but they should be in your size, and help you not feel out of place." She showed them the clothes laid out of the bed.

"If you don't like them we can try to pick up some you do like on Monday, as we won't have time tomorrow, and the shops are closed on Sunday."

Ginny was half listening as she picked up the clothes and held them over her. She spun around and hugged Petunia.

"Thank you Mrs Dursley, thank you."

"Call me Auntie, Aunt Petunia, or some variation on that, Mrs Dursley sounds like I should be a teacher. Now listen class, I am about to give you a lesson on how to screw up your life."

Ginny giggles at the impression, "Ok Auntie."

"Well, it's late so you should be off to bed, we'll work something out with Harry tomorrow."

An hour later Karen came down looking exhausted.

"You look like you could do with a glass of wine. I know we don't normally, but would you like a glass to relax and chat before we practice meditation?"

"Sure, do you have any white?"

"I'll check."

"Found one. Ceeley, could you chill this as I've not got the hang of that yet? Thanks, grab a glass and come and join us."

Petunia brought the bottle back with a couple of glasses. Then inspected the seal, "It's a screw cap, are you ok with those?"

"Sure."

Petunia poured them wine and then held out the bottle so that Ceeley could take it and pour herself some.

"What happened that's got you in a mess?"

"Do you want me to be honest or circumspect?"

"I need honest if I'm going to be able to help."

"OK, you screwed up badly, he's a year or so behind in social development and feels entitled to things because he wants them. I wouldn't be surprised if he used to steal from you when you wouldn't immediately buy him stuff he wanted. He has almost no concept of personal boundaries, and won't hesitate to take things from other children if he thinks he can get away with it.

He never learned the skills he needed to apply in school because you always got Harry to help him if he got stuck, and he never learnt to come to you for help for the same reason.

On the plus side, you haven't started screaming an shouting at me, even though you twitched to defend yourself. He's still only 11, so it's something that we can correct. And the main enabler and role model is no longer in the picture.

I'd need to talk to him more, but at the moment I think that you would be making the biggest mistake in his life if you sent him back to Smeltings, even if you paid the extra money. Now if he was magical, or you knew he was going to be magical, given that he said that Ginny was home schooled at the moment, I'd say pay Mrs Weasley the money you were going to budget for his schooling and ask her to teach him at the same time she does Ginny, and the same things, if she teaches Ginny to cook he learns to cook, same with cleaning, sewing, and the rest. While it might seem like things he doesn't need to know, it will teach him two things, one just how much work goes into keeping a home. And two, that some things need to be done and you're the only one left to do it – or the value of hard work.

"We can also set up a system of rewards that he can earn, such as an expanded room if Mrs Weasley thinks he's done a good job at the end of the year, or a new game, meal out, etc. There will be lots of resistance a month or so in once the novelty wears off, but it's the long game that we're looking for and is also why you can't be the one to teach him, as your history will work against you.

"If you send him back to the school, they will stick him in the special needs class for an hour or two a week, then he will be stuck with the same classes and people without the individual attention he needs to bring him up to speed."

Petunia slumps, "Thank you for laying it out for me, I feel like I failed as a mother."

"Nonsense, you did the best that you could with the tools you had available. They are safe, physically healthy, and have the opportunity to grow. You've taken on work so that you can still afford to help them, how much have you don't with Harry's estate again? And you're learning yourself, you're not allowing yourself to fall back into bad habits.

"You'd be surprised at just how many people would shrug their shoulders and say 'I can't fix this', and then go back to how they were because it's easier.

"Anyway we should go up and meditate so that I can stare at your pretty face while you're not going to object."

Petunia blushes slightly at the complement. Would you mind spotting me later, I'm going to try to let my magic go a little as I was able to talk to you last night quite easily."

"Sure" Karen smiles.

They both practice meditation, and then take a break until the hour arrives. Petunia knows exactly when it arrives because she feels a tug on her magic, like she's curled up into a little ball, and it's trying to get her to uncurl a little. After she's comfortable and sure that her magic isn't going to go away from her, she opens her eyes. I'm going to start now, be back shortly, do wait up for me. Karen sticks her tongue out and Petunia closes her eyes, and very slightly uncurls. The warmth of the magic is intoxicating as it caresses her soul and begs her to open herself up fully so that she can bask in the light. Remembering watching her hand start to evaporate she resists the siren call and opens her eyes. She can see the sand blasted landscape and lizards running around, as she turns her head she sees a gobbling standing a couple of feet behind her.

"Greetings Revered One, he bows towards her without moving from his position."

"Why are you standing there?"

"I'm acting as the anchor, distances don't quite match up here compared to our world, so we always leave someone where we arrive because we know then that we will be in the right place when we return. Our writings say that the discrepancy gets worse the deeper you go."

"How are you all getting on? As I don't see much of you."

"We've had limited successes, too many succumbed to the lure of the magic, I'm surprised that you managed to stop here on your first delve."

"Ah, well this is only my first solo delve, we went far enough that we were evaporating on the first one, and I didn't want a repeat performance."

"Such a layer exists? We only have legends of places where magic is visible in the sky. The furthest our guides speak of is the fae realms, they're said to be beautiful as all magic is visible, and there's nothing there that isn't absolutely infused with magic."

"Thank you for the informative chat, may your endeavours bring you fortune."

"They already have Revered One."

"Why do you call me Revered One?"

"It is the title that my people give those like us who are able to walk and delve the dream, as the risk is so high, yet the reward even higher. We are also called upon to hold back those who would bring ruin on our peoples, though we have not heard rumours of their activity for a long time."

"Until we see each other again."

Petunia concentrated on folding her magic back, which was harder than unfolding it was. Then she was being hugged by Karen.

Tears were streaming down her face when Petunia reappeared, she'd been gone for nearly 20 minutes and she was worried that she'd be gone forever. So she did the only thing she could and hugged her.

"You were gone for so long, are you ok?"

"I was? It didn't feel that long, I had a short chat with one of the goblins, but that was it and then I came back."

"It's been twenty minutes, I thought I'd lost you."

Petunia did the only thing she could and hugged her back, "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

40. Chapter 40

Petunia woke with Karen again, and gently shook her awake. She then waited until she was coherent until talking.

"What time do you finish today?"

"1pm this week, why?"

"Would you like… No. Would you be… I would like it if you came to pick up Harry and Hermione this afternoon, as the train is supposed to arrive at around three."

"I would love to."

"We've only got Hermione for the evening as Dan and Emma have been pulling late shifts all week to catch up since they got most of a hold on their magic. And Lisa, the muggleborn I met in Diagon, seems to be able to blunt the impact of the mistakes they make. So their yearly skiing holiday is back on, and they've bought a portkey to leave tomorrow morning."

"Sure, it would be nice."

"Would you like company while you work?"

"Depends on the company."

"Me?"

"Absolutely."

"I was thinking that as I was going to leave Dudley and Ginny in Diagon with Ceeley, I could do the same this morning with the High Street. That way Dudley gets to be the one showing off, and they can meet us in the Library when they're done, or before you finish work."

Karen resisted the urge to kiss Petunia on the cheek for being so thoughtful, as she didn't think that Petunia was ready for that yet, instead she said "That's a really sweet thing to do, and this is nice."

She then cuddled back down against Petunia.

As Ron put Harry in check for the second time that day, Harry reflected that he'd actually found a friend in Ron since Hermione bought him those books. He still wished he'd had a camera when his brothers came down the next morning and Ron was reading a book next to Hermione and him. A Chessboard in front of him with a position laid out. He just about fell of the chair laughing when they went back twice, and the second time they brought Percy down because they couldn't believe their eyes. He didn't even begrudge the fact that he'd needed to learn to play chess properly in order to keep up with the way that Hermione was relating things to chess based on but it was fun practicing on the bed while chatting. That wasn't to say that there weren't still problems, but he'd managed to get the freak out moments in the common room down to once a week, usually when Ron was too excited and forgot that grabbing him was a problem.

Malfoy was still a problem if Hermione wasn't around, though it was pretty funny when he forgot that Hermione was a muggleborn and asked her why she was hanging out with these mudbloods, half-bloods and blood traitors. It had only happened a couple of times, but it was still funny. The evening chatting circle seems to have become a fixture, though getting Hermione to join in again without a book to hand had taken the best part of the last two months. And wasn't that an interesting role reversal, him being the one to provide comfort and reassurance to her rather than the other way around. Thinking about changes that happened since then, Potions had become bearable. Though they'd both had to lend out their copies of "Sliver, Slice, and Dice, a home potioneers guide to ingredients and their preparations", which were now gracing a brand new bookcase in the common room that they'd got Professor McGonagall to put up when it became clear just how many books were becoming common property through constant lending. He wasn't sure what had happened to Professor Snape, but he'd stopped screaming insults at everyone and taking points off for stupid reasons. Though apparently it was only for their class, instead he'd look at Hermione and flinch before moving the leg he favoured. Even Neville was managing to produce workable potions.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Ron said, "That's checkmate, good game though you're not yet good enough to not pay attention."

Harry checked the board and realised that he'd made a couple of critical mistakes while he was thinking which cut the game short, "Damn, I thought I'd stopped making those mistakes."

"You're doing better, another game?"

"Na, I want to try to get my Potions homework done while I've got the books available than trying to do it while I'm at home for Christmas."

Ron started setting up a problem from one of his books, "At least you're going home. I'm stuck here while Mum and Dad go and see Charlie in Romania."

"Didn't you say that Ginny was spending the week with your Aunt Muriel? I'm sure they'd have let you do the same."

Ron blanched briefly, "Na, pretty much anywhere else is better than that. Enjoy your holiday."

Harry moved over to what had become the homework table, and went to pull out his stuff when he realised that his magic had done it for him already, sitting down next to Hermione he muttered, "I really need to get a better handle on that."

Hermione looked up from her parchment, "Handle on what?"

"My magic doing stuff for me."

"Oh, yeah. Mine does that too, it's as annoying as it is convenient. I think it's affecting everyone that's been meditating with us, but not quite as strongly. I mean, have you noticed that Lav's hair restyles itself when she's agitated now."

"Oh, is that what it is, I thought she was just using one of her charms."

"Yeah, Pav and I had a long chat with her about it a week or so ago while you were playing with Ron and Neville. Apparently, they've both been noticing that things happen for them, but only when they're worked up. Whether that's really excited, irritated, or some other emotion that's really strong. Do you remember when Pav came in crying a couple of weeks ago after Corner had made some unflattering comments about her intelligence compared to her twin, and the curtains on her bed snapped closed as she threw herself on her bed? That was another one."

"I remember that, so that's what caused it. We really need to get a handle on it, as we won't be able to navigate the muggle world without it."

"I know, but as they none of the others live in the muggle world they don't really see why it's a problem."

"Maybe we should get a catalogue from Selfridges and Harrods for them, and point out that they could never visit those stores if they didn't."

"That might work for Lavender and Parvati, but I'm not sure about the others. How's your sessions with Tonks going?"

"They're going well, look." Harry concentrates and switches into a girl.

"She doesn't thing this is a metamorph change, but thinks I might still have some metamorphic abilities as my hair hasn't changed since the year started, I've probably just got some sort of mental block preventing me from using them. She also explained, and I guess I finally understood too, that I will only ever have limited control over these changes, as my body will still react without conscious thought even once I can change effortlessly."

"Why's that?"

"She said that it's like blushing, or a nervous twitch. When I'm feeling aggressive I'll probably switch to a boy simply because I associate aggression with boys, and same with softer feelings and changing to a girl. She also pointed out that if I get over my mental block on standard metamorphic abilities, I'll probably see my hair colour changing in response to my emotions, and once I get more control, strong emotions will still cause them to change, I don't know if you've ever seen her hair flash pink or red, but it does that when she'd embarrassed or angry."

With that the conversation petered out and they turned to their work.

The next morning Harry and Hermione had everything packed in their book bags ready for the holiday when they went down to breakfast. So they were left sitting at the table as other students, Hermione was reading on of her books, while Harry was flitting between boy and girl while concentrating hard on something.

Suddenly she let out a triumphant cry of "Got it!".

Hermione looked up from her book across at harry as her eyes captivated her, she watched as a ring of jade appeared around her pupils and then the rest of her iris changed to a true emerald green complete with gem like reflections while a Verdigris ring formed around the outside of the iris. The changes seemed to ripple out from there as her face changed to take on a perfect heart shaped face with slightly aristocratic features and pale nearly translucent skin, a wave of deep blood red hair fell around her face, looking so close to vein blood that she almost thought it was going to drip at the ends. Hints of ruby sparkles shimmered as it fell down in waves. Her ears gained a slight point, only visible for a moment before she brushed her hair back and it fell down more evenly. The hair falling down to mid back. She let out a tinkling laugh before she concentrated for a moment and changed to a boy.

The change again started with his eyes, as the inner ring change to the colour of a freshly plowed field. The middle ring changed to a the brilliant green of fresh growth in spring, and the outer ring looked like a sun rise on a fresh spring morning. His features shifted becoming more aristocratic and regal, with well defined cheekbones and sun kissed skin. His hair turns a midnight blue with stars seemingly sparkling from within, pulling up to be shoulder length.

To the teachers that remembered his parents it looked like someone had taken his parents and smoothed out all of the imperfections that were present before making him look otherworldly.

Tonks rushes over and crouches down beside him looking at him critically. "Good you've found your base forms, now while you still remember what you looked like, close your eyes and imagine you're looking in the mirror this morning and try to step into that image."

Harry closes his eyes in concentration and does that, his features seeming to ripple and slowly change into the familiar form that Hermione was used to.

"Hermione, I want you to make sure that he changes to his base form for 5 minutes and back for 15 on the way home, this way he'll fix the form everyone knows into his mind. It's something I never had the opportunity to do, as I grew up with the ability, but I've read that it's possible. Once he gets it down to the point he can sleep in this form again it will be like a third, and in his case fourth base form."

Tonks then stands up and addresses the hall "Harry has just unlocked his metamorphic abilities, he's got to practice something on the journey home, so can everyone please try to avoid letting him use a mirror please?"

Harry opens his eyes and gasps, "That was hard."

Crouching down next to him, Tonks replied, "I know, it's like a muscle and you've just let it relax for the first time in a long time. Then I asked you to use it again straight afterwards. You'll sleep well tonight."

Tonk's request left Hermione itching to ask questions about Harry's appearance and what magical creatures could produce that. An itching that got worse over the journey because she couldn't ask without also describing what they looked like.

Finally they got off the train and were met by Petunia and Karen, and after a brief greeting Hermione exploded at them.

"Harry found his base form just before we left this morning! Go on Harry, show them."

Chuckling Harry obliged.

"Have you ever seen eyes like that? Something's tickling at the back of my…" She trailed off as Karen breathed an answer in awe.

"Fae, specifically one of the higher fae maybe a Nymph or the leaders of the courts."

Embarrassed by the way Karen was talking Harry forced herself back into her normal form.

Petunia nudged Karen before she addressed the two.

"Hermione, your parents asked me to pick you up as they've managed to get to the stage where they can do your yearly skiing trip." She paused as Hermione fair bounced on the spot in excitement. "So we're going to walk over to Diagon and meet up with Dudley and Ginny. Harry I'd like you to be patient with him as he got bullied at school, and we're getting a handle on his temperament, I know you're much more mature than he is. Unfortunately that puts the onus on you to leave the situation, whether that's calling for Ceeley or retreating to a room he can't get to.

"We've got a booking at Imperial China for dinner at 8, and your parents will meet you there Hermione."

"Aunt Petunia, who's Ginny?"

Petunia sighed, she should have expected a mention of Dudley would have Harry backslide. "Ginny is Arthur Weasleys daughter. Can I give you a hug? Just because Dudley's back doesn't mean I'm going to stop paying you attention. It's just that it was pointed out just how badly I've failed him, and that we've got an uphill struggle to undo the years where I didn't discipline him or call him to task. So he has to learn the stuff that you've known since you were 8. I still love you as if you were my own, and that's not going to change. Yes, I can say that now. Are you ok for now?"

Harry nodded.

"Some good news, tomorrow we need to go to the Ministry to pick up your parents effects. Hopefully that will include your mothers journal."

With that they all left for the walk to Diagon Alley.

41. Chapter 41

15th August 1980

When Granma Ami told me that my children were likely to show her heritage I didn't quite believe here, even though I dutifully wrote it down in my journal. I find myself having to eat my 10 year old selfs words, as while the similarity to James is striking with his hair and major features. The fact that he has tri-coloured eyes and a slight point to his ears shows that he really is fae royalty. This means that Grandma Ami was telling the truth when she said that Oberon was pushing her to become Titania and his wife. He has also inherited the Sidhe ability to shapeshift, which surprised James so much he fainted when Harry turned into a fawn while he was prancing around as Prongs. You have never seen a more funny sight than a stag with a full crown of antlers trying to stand back up without knocking over the priceless vase that his mother loves.

I am writing this entry after we made the hardest decision we have ever had to make before. With Charlus and Dorea's help we have locked Harry into the form he assumes when he is mimicking his father. It is our hope that once he's older we can unlock his form once he is stable and able to protect himself. With the ongoing war, and the chance that he may become an orphan, Charlus made us put in a failsafe that would allow him to release the binding himself by tying into his magic using a special hook technique that I've only read about in passing.

Surprising Harry the evening went really well. Dudley and Ginny seemed to be getting on really well, and they'd found a couple of cheap knock off walkmans in a charity shop before they arrived along with a couple of music tapes. So Ginny was talking his ear off about what she was listening to once she'd worked out how it worked. Dudley was cuddling a toy hippogriff that was animated, and had a couple of animated children's books and a second hand magical chess set. They'd found them both gorging themselves on ice-cream taking full advantage of the fact that they didn't have any parental supervision. After that they'd had a surprisingly pleasant time catching up, with Dudley only once nearly calling her a freak.

The hardest part of the evening had to have been after dinner, when Hermione had to leave with her parents and they both realised that they wouldn't see each other for a week. She hadn't realised that Hermione had become so much like a sister to her until then. It was satisfying to be able to respond to Dudley's comment that she was crying like a girl after she left with 'That's because I am a girl'. Ginny elbowing him in the side was almost as good.

Once they were assured that she was happy as a girl, and thus could share a room with Ginny, sleeping arrangements were sorted. Oh, and weren't her new rooms a surprise. She had three rooms to herself, and one that anyone could walk into. She didn't care that the one that anyone could walk into was the smallest room in the house, she had 3 other rooms to herself. She immediately started to work out what she would need to have a potions lab cum study. Sunday they got her parents things, so she begged off of going to London with Dudley and Ginny in order to read her mothers journal and just hold her baby pictures and her parents photos. Ginny and Dudley having a stand-up row in the sitting room didn't even bother her.

Karen came down shortly before Petunia and saw Harry sitting in the sitting room flicking through a photo album.

"Harry… Harry… Harry!" Harry startled as she near shouted the last.

"It's Christmas day tomorrow, have you bought all your Christmas presents?"

"Oh sugar, no" an expression of panic starts to come over her face.

"After breakfast, do you want me to go into london with you to buy your presents?"

"Would you please?"

"I'll let Petunia know, can you help me cook breakfast before Ceeley gets down here?" The clunk of the frying pan from the kitchen tells her that Ceeley heard her say that.

"Would you help me kick Ceeley out of the kitchen and cook breakfast with me, as I want to cook something nice for Petunia."

Harry laughed at that "Sure, you'll need to show me around as it's a little different than I'm used to."

"Sorry Ceeley, we're kicking you out for the morning as Karen wants to make a nice breakfast for everyone, you included."

After a nice breakfast they Floo'd to the Leaky Caldron and Harry got a little money from his vault and also registered the fact that he could also be she with the goblins so that she could be identified in the event that she didn't have her key. He bought Hermione a book shaped silver locket that was inscribed with "Harry Hermione, Sisters and friends forever" and enchanted to produce the smell of an old bookshop. He bought his aunt an acromantula silk scarf that could turn into a Sari. Dudley he bought a satchel that had a secret bottomless component that could only be opened with he matching ring or an application of magic. He managed to sneak in a book on magical myths and legends for Karen, and then they were off to the muggle world. He managed to find a cheap battery powered chess computer for Ron, a makeup kit and £5 gift voucher to Liberty for Lavender, a manicure and pedicure set and gift voucher for Parvati, a gardeners encyclopaedia for Neville, and finally a gyroscope for the twins. For the rest of the girls in he knew he bought a friendship bracelet and a selection of muggle sweets. Karen popped off to do a bit of her own shopping occasionally. Due to the fact it was Christmas eve, the shopping in the muggle world took them until mid-afternoon. After paying for a wrapping service at Liberty, they went back to Diagon Alley and got all the parcels sent off by owl post for a nominal fee, and had lunch in one of the pubs there.

While Harry and Karen were out shopping Petunia took the time to wrap her presents while Dudley and Ginny were playing something in his room. She laughed at Nixie as she investigated the Sellotape and got stuck to it. She was thoroughly looking forward to a lovely evening with everyone a glass of mulled wine and snacks as they watched Christmas films. A tapping at the window interrupted her, so she got up and took the letter from the owl before offering it some water. The owl flew off without taking her up on the offer, so she returned to the table to read the letter and continue wrapping. As she read the letter she felt like the bottom had fallen out of her world.

Ceeley heard her mistress crying and came in to see what was happening, seeing the letter she looked at it and saw Karens name in it so popped up to Dudley's room.

"Master Dudley, Mistress Ginny, Ceeley is going to be turning the electricity in a moment as bright witch is crying, and might blow up the street again."

She then popped off and did exactly that before returning to the dining room and, not knowing what else to do, finished wrapping the presents and moved them to the tree. She then wrung her hands for a moment before putting on a kettle of water to make tea. Placing a cup of tea beside her Mistress, she noted that she wasn't getting any better. Wracking her brain for something else she could do, she remembered that she was bonded with Harry as well. Feeling out the bond she found him and made herself invisible before popping to his side. Ceeley felt bad that he was just about to start eating, but this was important.

"Master Harry, Master Harry, you's and Mistress Karen needs to come home now."

Harry looked at the distraught elf and the fact that Karen hadn't registered her presence. "Karen, Ceeley's here saying that we need to go home."

Karen quicky pulled out a couple of random coins and left them on the table before holding her hands out one either side of the table. She felt Ceeley grasp her hand and then she was pulled through space into the dining room. Once she registered that Petunia was crying she immediately went over and enfolded her in a hug. She was vaguely aware of the fact that Harry had taken up the other side as she mumbled,

"It's OK, I'm here, I'm here I'm not going away."

Petunia then clutched Her and sobbed harder, "They're coming to take you away."

"What do you mean sweetie?" Blindly Petunia grabbed the note and shoved it at Karen, taking it with one hand she manipulated it open and read it over her head. It was a note from Amelia Bones saying that her application for an exemption had been denied and so they obliviaters are going to come tomorrow and relocate her to another town with new memories.

"Shhh, we knew this could happen which is why you've been practicing so much. We just hoped you'd be ready before it happened. I don't want to leave you either, but I can't see any way around it as you're not ready yet."

With the potential for this not happening dangling in both hands, Petunia stopped crying and her body language firmed up.

"I'm going to do it."

"What?" asked Harry confused.

"You can't, you're not ready." Crooned Karen.

"I've done hops every night this week, I can do this and I don't want to lose you."

"What have you done, what do you want to do?"

"Harry sweetheart, I'm going to make Karen magical the same way you made me magical."

"But I saw the memory, it almost killed us."

"I know, but it didn't. But right now I felt like I was dying when I saw that note. No Karen, you don't get a say as you die either way. I don't care what they say, but if you don't remember this life when you wake up, you've died. You're not you anymore, and I don't want you to die. I don't care if Nixie could eat the spell and restore your memories, I'd still have to find you. And after everything that's happened this year I'm not sure I could survive losing you on top of everything else. I'm sorry Harry, but I feel like if this is allowed to happen you'd still have my body, but I think I'd die inside."

"I'll do it, I'm the one with the fae ancestry, so I'll do it I'll take her and make her magical for you."

"I can't let you do that Harry. Don't you understand that if you made a mistake I'd lose one of my children and the person I've come to love." She paused as that last thought rattled around in her head.

"Don't you think I feel the same way about you too?"

Karen spoke up, "What about my feelings on the matter? I love you too? I'm the one that is going to have my memories erased, and I don't want you to die, I want to know that you're safe and you still have another chance at happiness."

"I'm going to prove I can do it tonight, and you can either come with me, or you can watch me do it. And yes Harry, I think you do, but you've also got Hermione, you're also young and so the impact will probably be blunted. Also, if you still feel like that in a few months, there's nothing stopping you from coming to find me, as I'm not going to die, I just might not be able to come back."

The sound of Dudley crying and him running up to his room followed by Ginny shocked them out of their argument.

Petunia softly but firmly stated "I am going to delve tonight, and I hope that you're with me. I can't force you to come, but I don't want to lose you without knowing that I'd done everything I could to save you."

She then got up and followed Dudley upstairs. Karen went to sit in the front room silently, and Harry sat down at the table.

Harry couldn't really understand what her aunt was going through, Hermione was skiing, and Karen was having her own troubles, so she called for the only other person that she felt she could talk to.

"Ceeley, do you understand what's going on with my Aunt and Karen?"

Ceeley popped in and spoke carefully so that she couldn't be misunderstood, "No, but I can tell you what would be happening if they were elves."

"Could you please?"

"Our magic is kinda alive, not as alive as yours and mistresses, but it's still alive. It comes to our bidding and follows our will, but when we're learning it does things on it's own. Wizard magic like that too if they wake it up, but it's smaller, less, I don't have the word I need, so it takes work to wake it and most keep using wands until they forget that they are magic and not their wands. For elves, our magic can taste other elves magic and if it likes it, then it pushes us towards them. They might not be the only elves it likes, or it might like another elf more if we ignored the push. But if their magic likes ours back it becomes hard, as we feel lost without them and they feel lost without us. So we come together magic and body and stay as long as our magic likes each other. While together we might make babies, might not.

"Mistress' magic be liking Karen a lot, and is pushing her to be with Karen. If it works, then their magic may intertwine like two trees growing next to each other and even though they different trees with different fruit, they cannot be separated as to separate one would be to kill the other. When you is older, your magic will probably do same. For those with magic as powerful as yours, losing one that your magic likes is like having your heart cut out, unless it lets go first. But magic and mind don't always work together with joining or leaving."

Harry listened patiently as she struggled to find the words to explain, by the end she thought she understood.

"Does that mean that she love Karen more than she loves Dudley or me?"

"No, differently. If you were still elflings her magic would keep her with you until you were old enough to live yourself. But your magic says it's old enough now even if you not know enough to live now. We teach young elflings to live first and then teach them how to do things. Wizards teach elflings how to do things and live at the same time, so it takes longer."

"Am I going to be like that?"

"I don't know, you not wizard so I don't know."

"I'm not?"

"Your magic too strong, too wild, too free for wizard. Same with Soopy family. You is magic, you carry magic, and magic is you, not true for elf. Elf is magic but elf not carry magic and magic not elf. Wizard not magic, but carry magic and magic not wizard. Wizard can learn be magic, but take work. Elf can not learn carry magic, need other that can."

Harry rubbed her head as it started to ache. "OK, what about Dudley and Karen."

"They are, empty, like bottle, can fill with water, butter beer, fire whisky, or something else; but until done is just empty bottle. Cat lady like bottle with water, red girl like bottle with butter beer, Ceeley like bottle with fire whisky, you something else."

"So how does Auntie's magic like Karen?"

"Ceeley not know sorry. Ceeley tired, need do housework to let head rest." Ceeley popped away.

After thinking for a while, Harry changed to a boy and went upstairs to talk to Dudley and Ginny. He tried to explain what Ceeley had explained. He then asked them if they would help prepare food for now and later, fully expecting the answer to be no, but as soon as Ginny agreed Dudley surprised him and agreed. So the three of them spend the rest of the afternoon cooking and playing games in the dining room before Harry made sure they all went to bed. He had to explain just how dangerous staying awake was for him, and maybe Ginny and why, which lead to an explanation of what they'd been doing and what Aunt Petunia was going to do later.

Petunia was sitting nervously on the floor of their meditation room, she'd left the door ajar so that Karen could come in if she wanted, but the clock said that it was half an hour to midnight and she was afraid that Karen wasn't going to come. She was lightly meditating to avoid watching the clock when she heard the door click shut. She kept her eyes shut until someone took her hands. When she opened them she saw Karen searching her face.

"Did you know?" she asked softly

"Know what?"

"I heard Ceeley talking to Harry and explaining things?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ceeley said that magic likes the taste of people and pushes you to be with them."

"I had no idea."

"I'm glad, I don't know what I'd do and you'd only been talking to me because of your magic."

Petunia laughed "I've had magic for less time than I've known you. Do you remember when Harry pulled me into the library to meet you and he was so excited?"

"How could I forget, he called me Librarian Lady."

"I didn't get magic for maybe a week or two after that. Everything seems to have happened so fast since then I lost track of time."

"I'm here for better or worse, and what ever you're going to do, your doing it with me."

Petunia took Nixie out from under her hair and gently placed the sleepy aictuilaxr on the bed in the display room before shutting the door again. She then padded over and sat facing Karen, taking her hands gently and sinks into the familiar meditation waiting for the feel of the dream starting.

As she felt it start she double checked and made sure that she held Karen's hands as she started to unfurl her magic, the familiar call of the deeper magic pulling her on. But she felt weighed down as if carrying a great weight. So she opened herself further and further, and it started pulling along with her, but so slowly. She opened herself more, taking less caution that she had been, and then it snapped free. The dream hurtled past so fast, she could feel how her magic was carrying her up through the layers as of she was a balloon underwater. Desperately she tried to close her magic against the flow, and it was so hard. Karen's grip on her hands giving her the impetus she needed to push as hard as she needed. Slowly she closed down again and she felt their progress slow too, she dared not look at where they were for fear that it would break her concentration. She got it to an equilibrium point and slowly it reversed before snapping back into place. She felt herself falling back through the world's, but Karen's hands jerked out of her grasp and she crashed back to earth, tears streaming down her face, as she'd just killed the person who had come to mean so much over the last six months.

Karen becomes magical

Karen looked back over the last 4 months, and found herself amazed once again at how much her world has changed. A humorous laugh escapes her mouth, as she considers that she used to be happy to be just a Librarian with degrees in Child Psychology, Mythology, and her first degree, Librarianship. Yet here she was sitting next to a housewife turned powerful witch. It wasn't the first time they'd done this, but the previous times had just been to watch over her as she stayed in this world. Lily's diary and the practices of the Goblins in the spare room were what had led to the current experiment, coupled with the note from Amelia stating that she wouldn't be getting the exemption, and so they were coming to wipe her mind tomorrow.

She was well aware of the fact that what they were about to do was very dangerous, and she was very grateful that Petunia was willing to do this for her as she didn't want to lose her friends and family just because the magical government felt the need to keep the magical world secret from everyone. She glanced up at the clock and saw the minute hand tick to 11:59.

"One minute." Petunia nodded and started to sink into her meditation. Karen took her hands and took a deep breath. In theory this would be similar to her previous practices, but this time Petunia would let her magic rise slightly to match the dream. Petunia was going to try and take her to the world she'd found Nixie in, figuring that should give her some leeway if she had trouble controlling it. They knew it was possible to control it as some of the goblins had been really happy and come back with different rocks. She looked up at the clock again, still 40 seconds, she needed to get her anxiety under control before it causes her to make a mistake. In reflection, Petunia, Dan and Emma were lucky as they had something they were desperately trying to do when they went through this, but this is agonising.

One minute past, has something gone wrong? Is Petunia aborting? The clock looks weird. Oh, it's starting. I wonder how she's coping, I hope it's not too hard as they described it going faster than this. Two minutes past I think, the red light of the other world is making it hard to see the second hand.

Suddenly the it feels like the bottom falls out of Karen's stomach, except kinda sideways, "Eep!"

Several worlds flicker past all at once and suddenly she feels like someone has taken a sledgehammer to the inside of her head as she can see things starting to come into focus that she's sure aren't physical, a glowing bug lands on her nose as a bird swoops to avoid her. Then the world fades out too fast, she can see the wrinkles on Petunias face as sweat beads on her forehead.

Flick a world.

Flick a world.

Flick a stream of light becomes visible in the sky, and draws Karen's attention.

Flick, the stream is closer

Flick, it's now a river

Fade, oh shit! What's happening to my hair? Karen looks down to Petunia who is now pouring with sweat as though she's performing a great task, tiny wisps floating off of her head like ash being blown away. She looks down to her own hand to see it streaming away towards the river in the sky. She glances up to see the smaller river starting to become visible imposed over the one that's pulling her in. A ball of white light hurtles towards them from the sky and they're not going to fade out in time. They're almost faded out when Karen screams and instinctively flinches back letting go of Petunia. The world snaps back into focus as Petunia disappears in front of her.

The ball of light coalesces into a woman wearing a toga, a circlet with a semi-circular horn pointing towards the sky. She steps forward and reaches out to touch her face, and she can't move. She's aware of the fact that she no longer appears to be evaporating, then her fear fades away as if someone put a cap on it.

"Hush young one, I did not mean to endanger you I just felt another visitor from your world and wished to converse. You are safe for the moment, I am reenforcing your sense of self with my will, though I will need to send you home soon if you are to survive. Ah, but I cannot do such a thing for free."

"I can't exactly barter, as you already hold my life in your hands."

"And that is what I needed to hear. You see, the acknowledgment of such things affects the magic that makes us up. But it would not work had I intended to put your life in danger. Indeed, had your companion remained I could not have claimed your life as a debt due to me. But here we are, and it has been a long time since I have aided a mortal, though that only applies to you loosely now, and the more skilled you become the less it will apply. Don't get me wrong, your shell will still be able to be destroyed, but you would live on, and could do so indefinitely here. Forming a new shell at a whim and discarding it just as easily. You could even venture beyond into the seas of magic where only pure will stands between you and annihilation, where the world is defined purely by imagination and the rules of matter have no sway. Where even I fear to spend too much time lest I meet oblivion, and only the sleepers can be found.

"It was the passing wake of one of the sleepers that lead me to this place, only to find the imprint of people from your world. It seems like only, what the word you use, yesterday when another was stranded here, though I didn't find this one. One of the bright fae found him, and in exchange for his life he took her back to his world and forsook the power he'd found here. It's funny how life turns out, it seems she gained her freedom and mortality, and now one of her descendants returned and sent ripples through to the sea, and a sleeper came to look.

"It would have ended there, but before the sleeper lost interest another appeared with more empty vessels like you. It's movement led it to your world where people have forgotten the lessons of iron, and sleep defenceless. It's wake attracted the Fae who stole away and brought back prizes. It's funny how the very reason the fae abandoned your world is now the reason why they can start predations again. Your rapid advancements and increasing use of iron in everything. Yet now you have moved beyond that and alloy it with other materials, lessening it's impact on magic.

"Oh, you can't destroy magic anymore than you can destroy energy, but the complex matrix that makes up our lives? Well, while they could drive me off, and the sleepers would be barely inconvenienced, those that still rely on a physical form, or the lesser creatures of the worlds? They don't have enough magic to withstand pure iron for long, though the less pure the easier they find to bear it."

"How do I know what's happened in your world? You are not strong enough here to protect your mind, so it's a simple matter to just take that information for my own. This leads me onto my deal, you will be my eyes, ears, and hands in your world. I had others thousands of years ago, but that was before the hunter stole my crown. It's simpler for you than it would be for a man, as you already follow my cycle. So if you agree I will return you to your home safe and healthy. I now leave the choice to you."

Karen licked her lips, "I accept."

"Before you go, you should know, the person that came before was called Lovecraft, I believe that one of his children were able to peer into the sea." She indicates the river in the sky behind her. Reaching out she touches Karen's forehead, a searing pain radiating from her finger.

"Just a reminder of our agreement, sweet dreams, you will awaken where you should be." As the world goes dark she feels herself wrap around a warm body and pulled herself closer.

42. Chapter 42

14th June 1968

Dear diary,

Did you know that my grandpa had 2 names? Neither did I. Apparently he was born with one and made to forget it. So someone gave him a new one when they found him. Grandma Ami helped him remember his first name when they met. I hope someone will help me remember if I ever don't remember my name. Grandpa said he published lots of books using his new name, but I they weren't for children so he wouldn't tell his new name until I finish school. Just a few more weeks.

Petunia woke feeling absolutely wrung out, her friend and probably more was gone and she'd killed her. She wanted her back so badly that she was imagining that they were holding her. She sobbed quietly into her pillow, her magic so curled up inside her it was suffocating. She realised that if she didn't let it go it would probably kill her soon, but she'd rather be dead than alone. The faint whispered breath that carried the words "Merry Christmas" to her ear didn't reach her. Neither did the soft shaking afterwards. When she was turned over she opened her eyes to see who was interrupting, and her mouth to chase them off with the most vile invectives she could think of when she saw the face of an angel. Then the angel spoke.

"It's me, Karen, you didn't fail I'm back."

Then she broke, she didn't care if this was the afterlife or not, Karen was here. She clutched onto her as if she might vanish into vapour in an instant.

"I don't care if we're dead, I love you and I'm never going to let you go again."

"I love you too. Just, let me in, I don't want to survive that only to see you die. "

With an effort she uncurled her magic and it reached on its own and pulled Karen into her binding her more thoroughly than Ceeley was bound.

"It is you, it really is you."

───────── ೋღ :hpdd: ღೋ─────────

Amelia watched as a nervous team of Obliviators and Aurors assembled in the bullpen under the direction of Delores Umbridge, the Ministers hatchet woman. The whole thing stinks of making a statement, as if this wasn't a political move the petty tyrant could have just taken a couple of people to abscond with the person in question while they were away from Petunia. She hoped that the note she'd managed to send yesterday before they were sworn to secrecy for the duration of the operation had helped. She stifled a laugh as the thought that if they'd succeeded at what they threatened, then the wards might object.

"Moody!"

"Yes Bones?" A scarred Auror stumped over, his wooden leg loud against the background of the preparations, his false eye spinning seemingly randomly.

"You know what's going on. I need you to go as an observer, to make sure all our laws and treaties are upheld. I suggest you make your own way there."

He gave her a knowing look, "I'll grab the evidence camera then."

As he stumped off to do that she turned back to listen to Umbridge's plans. She made a note to give Robards a commendation later as he suggested that they split up and some of them go in from the outside. She laughed humorously as all the Obliviators and Aurors that had been there before the wards were covered last time volunteered to be in the second group. The rest of them crowded around a floor plan of the house, as they worked out where to portkey into and who would go where.

Alastor Moody appeared with a soft pop at the end of Privet drive, well away from any wards that might be around #4. He was already disillusioned and wearing an invisibility cloak. His eye scanned for threats automatically, once he was happy that he was alone he straightened up from his ready pose and put his wand away. He'd not been here before, but he'd heard about it from the obliviation squad that were the first responders to the accidental magic discharge a couple of months ago. He stopped to look in awe at the wards swirling around the property, magic occasionally arcing off into the air. It looked like they were non-arithmancy based magic, and if they were they'd belong to a very exclusive club, the only other site in Britain being the underlying wards at Hogwarts. He shook his head at the thought that Umbridge was going to try to breach these wards with a portkey, he wouldn't want to try to breach these without a team of curse breakers and a month.

He settled in to wait for the team to finish planning and spent the time trying to find anything identifiable in the wards. A short time later a large ripple spread out along the surface of the wards as something bounced off. A series of pops appeared around the outside of the wards as the Aurors that apparated in did so very well and had notice-me-not charms up and covering the area only a few seconds after that. A few minutes later the crack of a portkey arriving revealed a dishevelled breach team. An irate Umbridge straightened her dress and then marched up the street, warrant in hand, before turning around confused. She got halfway back to the team before she remembered why they were then and turned around again. This time she apparated away, and a couple of minutes later came back, pure rage plastered across her face, her wand grasped in a white-knuckled grip. She marched up the street again and was blasted back to the group, she landed in a crumpled heap mercifully unconscious. The Aurors on her team just stared at her then at the house they were supposed to serve the warrant at.

Alastor chose that moment to uncloak himself after putting the camera away.

"Robards"

"Yes Sir!"

"Take the warrant, and walk unthreateningly to the house, ring the doorbell, and inquire politely whether a non-magical by that name lives at this address. Do nothing that the wards might find threatening or could be perceived as intending to harm the occupants. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Sir!"

Robards did so and a few minutes later a young overweight boy answered the door. A couple of minutes later he could see a couple of women answer the door and talk to Robards before the door closed and he returned to the group.

"Karen Allen does live there, but they claim that the only non-magical there is Dudley Dursley, who is exempted by nature of the fact that he's Harry Potters cousin. I've asked them to pop by St Mungo's for a check-up so that we can verify that the warrant was issued erroneously. I also informed them that there is a complaints process if they wish to raise a complaint to the issuing department.

Sir, can I speak frankly?"

"Go ahead."

"Mrs Dursley gives me the willies sir. When I said I had a warrant for Karen I suddenly felt like I was a small and particularly loathsome bug that she was going to squash if I gave her any reason to."

"Very well, return to the ballpen and treat this like any other failed warrant to one of the noble houses. If they query it, remind them that the black town house is in muggle London somewhere, and we don't actually know where their other properties are; and that the Potters are one of those Noble houses, even if they don't have a Regent or head at the moment."

With that he watched everyone apparate away before leaving himself.

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Petunia reflected that Christmas day had started off well and then taken a running jump off a cliff and just kept going. She was just comforting her son while Karen was talking to Harry off to one side as talking through Dudley's memories had unearthed a lot of stuff that he'd been dealing with. Meanwhile Ginny had been an unwilling witness to just how broken their family was, and she was alternating between staring at Harry's new, old base form and thinking. She thanked whatever deity was out their for Ceeley again, as she had no idea what they'd do without her.

A flash of red made her look over to where Karen was comforting Harry, who had just switched to a girl. The sight of her holding Harry in her lap as she cried made the words "I love you" slip out without her realising it. Karen looked over and mouthed "I love you too." And she fair melted, Christ she was supposed to be an adult not a hormonal teenager with their first girlfriend. Though Karen was certainly that. Ginny's mouth dropping open as she stared at Harry caused her to start laughing uncontrollably, which disturbed Dudley who looked over at Harry with another jaw dropped expression and the mood lifted from where it was to a typical Christmas when Marge was around.

"Come on everyone, it's Christmas, Yule."

"Saturnalia" Karen inserts

"Hanukkah or whatever holiday you celebrate, and Ceeley has done an absolutely wonderful job with the dinner if my nose isn't lying.

"Let's have some food and then we can open presents and see if Star Wars is on TV."

As everyone else started to get up for dinner, Petunia stopped Ginny "Ginny."

"Yes Aunt Petunia."

"I'm sorry that this has all happened on Christmas Day, it should be a day when everyone can just be happy for once in the year."

"It's still better than Aunt Muriel's would be." Ginny mumbled.

She gives Ginny a quick hug before pushing her into the dining room gently, "Go on, sit opposite Harry so that you can gawk at her until she manages to pull herself back into the body we're all familiar with."

Ginny trips in embarrassment at being caught doing that earlier.

"If you want to talk about it later, you know where to find me."

Christmas dinner wasn't quite a happy affair, but at least they weren't sitting in silence, Ceeley included reluctantly. Petunia could see Ginny's Hero worship shifting over the dinner from a young girls infatuation with her prince charming to seeing someone to aspire to be like. She'd have to talk to Karen later, but she didn't think either of those were particularly healthy when applied to Harry.

After presents and a long talk about what had happened last night and this morning, as well as Harry's situation. A promise to teach both Dudley and Ginny to meditate.

The rest of the holiday passed quietly with a trip to St Mungo's to prove that Karen was magical, a trip to Regent street to see the lights, trip to south-end-on-sea to see the fairy garden and amusement park.

The new year brought the return of the Weasleys and Grangers and their home seemed to sprout a new member in the way of Hermione or lost a member as Harry went to visit.

Karen spoke to Mrs Weasley about Dudley and she readily agreed to tutor him during the day for a few Galleons a week, in return they'd tutor Ginny in the things that Molly was weak in. Which then meant registering both of them in two systems just in case inspectors turned up while Ginny was with them so that she at least had a paper trail. That was when they made the acquaintance of a young man that worked for the government and became their caseworker and seemed to be able to magically get all the right paperwork in the right places at the right times to make everything go smoothly.

All too soon the family was on the platform waving Harry and Hermione off on the train to school, and Petunia had absolutely no idea where two weeks had disappeared to.

43. Chapter 43

30th October 1981

Dumbledore has just left with James cloak. We've been living under fidelius charm for a week now, and true to what Dumbledore told us before he cast it and we went under the charm, only people told by Peter can find us. But that doesn't mean that it's wise to let him take away our last fool proof method of escape/survival. To be honest, if Tunie hadn't changed since she married Vernon I'd have made James move there with me and just use this house as a place to come and go from.

31st October 1981

This is just a quick note. He's found us and it's too early to use the dream to escape, even if James could hold him for long. I am going to prepare a ritual to shed my body and bind my magic to Harry. Harry, if you're reading this then I succeeded, and according to Grandma Ami if you go to the fae realms or deeper I'll be able to form a body. However, while I'm.

Hermione closed the journal and looked up at Harry the countryside of the Scottish lowlands rolling past as they neared Hogsmeade, "We'll practice and we'll start delving, we'll find your mother I promise."

"But we've already been there and she wasn't there."

"Maybe it will take time for her to form a body and you weren't in one place for long enough. You said that Karen met someone that lives out there, so we know that it's possible to exist there."

Their conversation was cut short when Parvati looked in and shouted to the next compartment "She's finished reading guys."

Lavender, Parvati, Susan, and a few more first year girls all squeezed into the compartment to fit 3 hours' worth of grilling about their holiday into the last hour of the train ride, and harry needing to show off her base female form. This lead to Susan suggesting that she try to add the hair without the sparkles to her normal female form, as well as some of the features so that they could tell what they should be calling her at any particular moment, all of them extracted a promise from her to do so. They also thanked Harry and Hermione for their gifts and got thanked in turn.

The opening feast was spent reacquainting themselves with the people that stayed over the holiday, and having Ron alternating between thanking Harry for his gift, bemoaning that he couldn't use it till he got home, and complaining that it wasn't like his wizard chess set. A couple of goblets and plates disappearing up and down the table revealed two things, the first being that Chirpy was starting become more independent, the second being that the school made use of conjured cutlery and crockery for food, which meant that them being made out of gold was a demonstration of skill rather than wealth. Which then lead to an animated discussion over at the Ravenclaw table where a few of them tried to finite various things with varying success.

At the end of the feast the headmaster stood up and informed the school that in the future anyone that dispelled one of the plates or goblets would lose 15 points from their house and also have detention with one of the teachers until they had replaced the item they destroyed with an equivalent item. A lot of the lower years laughed at that, while the upper years looked at how ornate the goblets were and blanched at the idea of needing to replace one.

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Finally they were allowed back up to the dorms, where the Gryffindor Girls gathered to appropriately gush over the presents that Lavender and Parvati had received from Harry. Including a thorough questioning about what Liberty was. Hermione pulled out a couple of catalogues one for Harrods and one for Selfridges. Which lead to further gushing over the things that they could buy in one store. Harry pointed out that wizarding equivalents could be found in Diagon Alley for most of the non-electrical stuff. Then allowed herself to be carried along in the conversation. She noticed that Hermione was the same, just enjoying being included, so she reached over and gave her hand a squeeze and a smile. They gave it another few minutes before going over to Harry's bed to meditate. Once there they found Chirpy sleeping on a pile of silvery material.

"Hey girls, did any of you see where this came from?"

Slowly the conversation over the catalogues and the possible uses of some of the things inside petered out as they registered what Harry asked and they filtered over to his bed. The general answer was no, though Fay thought that there might have been a Christmas present there when she came in, but wasn't sure.

"Is Conjured stuff used for wrapping paper and labels a lot?" asks Hermione.

"Oh yes, Scribbulus' usually has a seasonal selection by talented wizards for the week running up to Christmas." Lavender responds.

"I think it was a late Christmas present from someone that couldn't get it to you for the day."

Harry looks puzzled when she responds "Why didn't they just give it to me?"

Melissa suggests, "Maybe they wanted it to be a surprise, or a secret."

"Could be, though given that Chirpy's now sleeping on it, it should be safe whatever it is." Harry then gently moves Chirpy over to Hermione's pillow and picks up the item. After a bit of moving it around with the rest of the girls they finally had it upright and revealed that it was a full circle hooded cloak.

"That looks really pretty, put it on!" Lavender pushes in excitement.

Harry swings the cloak over her shoulders and pulls it closed; everything covered by the cloak disappears once the front meets.

"Woah, it looks like that's an invisibility cloak." Melissa whispers.

"It's more than that, it's better than house elf invisibility." Hermione adds.

"What do you mean?"

"Harry and I can both see house-elves and Chirpy all the time. House elves need to do something with their magic and their eyes in order to see Chirpy a little. I know, Mipsy"

Mipsy popped in "Bright witch calls for Mipsy?"

"Mipsy, I know that you can do something that allows you to kind of see Chirpy as Ceeley and Soopy do it occasionally, would you be able to explain how you do it to us so that they can try to see him too?"

"Mipsy not sure how to explain it, elves just put a bit of magic in eyes and they become visible."

"That's brilliant, thank you Mipsy"

"Mipsy know Mipsy not going to get any peace after this" she said before she popped away.

"I think that you're going to have to be able to touch your magic during the meditation for this, who has got that far?"

Lavender raises her hand.

"Lavender, would you mind meditating until you can feel it, and then trying to draw a little of it up into your eyes?"

Lavender does so and then opens her eyes, "Merlin, it's so beautiful, and I can see Chirpy, he's so cute didn't you say he had stripes?"

"He does, I think you can just see the magic around, not the details."

"Put your cloak back on. That's so freaky, I still can't see your body" Harry obliges.

She then glances up at the clock.

"I think we should be getting to bed now unless you want to test just how good your meditation is, as it's getting late."

Everyone hurried to bed at that, the story of what happened to Karen over the holiday still fresh in their minds.

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The next morning, after they'd finished practicing their meditation, Hermione noticed that Harry was rubbing at her chest.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, it's just my chest itches and rubbing doesn't seem to help."

"That's great news, your breasts are starting to bud, my periods started first, but you'll get used to it."

"Great. I suppose I've been lucky enough to have a few months to get used to this body and the fact that I'll be going through two puberties at the same time. But did you have to remind me that I've got periods to look forward to."

Hermione stick her tongue out, "Glad I could help."

"Would you help me get my hair right, I'm not sure it's a good length yet. I also need to fix it in my mind."

"Sure, I wish I could do that."

"Are you sure you can't?"

"Well no, being a metamorph is something you're born with."

"But I change gender, and mum became younger and more beautiful. So I don't think our magic has the same constraints as normal witches and wizards. Even there, have you noticed Lavenders hair?"

"I have, I thought she was using her wand for that."

"So, did I until I saw it happen while she was working on a transfiguration problem, she buried her face in her hands and her hair changed."

"We should tell her so that she can learn to control it, she has that voucher that she's going to want to be able to use, and she can't do that if she doesn't have a handle on it."

They then started working on Harry's new female appearance. Once the other girls woke up it quickly became a communal effort and once she'd got her hair to the right length and look she diverted attention away by pointing out that Lavenders hair had started to restyle itself. They continued to do that while taking turns washing and getting dressed.

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After breakfast Harry followed Hermione as she went to visit the library, still getting over the week and a bit that they'd been unable to see each other while she was skiing. Her hand found its way into Hermione's hand as they allowed the touch to reassure each other that they were still there. Hermione didn't show it, but she'd missed Harry just as much.

As they were taking a detour because the stairs weren't being cooperative, Chirpy climbed onto Hermione's shoulder before sniffing the air and chirping excitedly, then jumped off her shoulder before she could catch him. He then ran off down the corridor following some unseen scent and Harry and Hermione hurried to follow him. When he darted into a disused classroom they lost him for a moment before they saw movement underneath a sheet covering a mirror. Harry flicked off the sheet in a billowing mass while Hermione stood in front of it ready to grab Chirpy before he damaged anything. When she didn't move to grab Chirpy, Harry came round to the front of the mirror to check on her only to freeze himself as he saw himself and Hermione stood amongst his family, his mother resting her hands on their shoulders with Petunia, Karen, and Dudley to side. He wasn't sure how long they'd stood there, but the sound of a stone hitting the floor snapped both of them out of the trance that held them and they looked down at the Blood red fist sized gem that now lay on the ground.

44. Chapter 44

23rd September 1972

We met Hagrid for the first time today, and he invited us in for a cup of tea. I accepted as I could see that pillock James walking out of the school and I didn't want to deal with any of his antics today. He's an absolute diamond of a person, friendly, gentle, and kind all wrapped up in one massive cuddly frame. Once you've spoken to him for more than a few words you can't help but love him. But my god, he sucks at cooking, grandma Rose cooks rock cakes but at least you can gnaw on them and actually eat one. Hagrid's? I swear they'd be better used for skipping than eating, maybe as pack rations as a way of stretching out your food. By making other things seem edible. Also, as a note never ever tell him something you want to keep secret. Oh, he'll keep his trap shut when asked directly, and let it slip the next moment by accident. It's how we found out he's raising a Cerberus and he's called it Fluffy of all things.

Harry was the first to break the stunned silence, "Right, well, let's not look in that mirror again."

"I know, it's freaky I saw us being handed our doctorates by the Minister of Magic."

"I saw us and my mother with her hand on our shoulders. How do you know it was the Minister of Magic?"

"I'm not actually sure. Anyway, how do you suppose that stone got there, and do you think it's important?"

"I've got no idea, maybe Chirpy ate an old enchantment and it fell out of it. Stick it in your bag and we'll hand it over to a teacher later."

With that they collected Chirpy and the stone and continued onto the library. Once there Hermione pulled out books on invisibility cloaks, including the invisible book on invisibility. Meanwhile Harry unconsciously switched to his male form in excitement as he looked for books on the fae to see if he could find any reliable information about the people he was possibly related to. A couple of hours later he gave up in disgust. Hermione looked at him as he threw his quill on the floor.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, just peachy. It's just these books, I can't read them look."

He spun the book around and pointed to a passage that mentioned sidhe.

Harold Roosterfen forþringan dôð folcscipe un−l¯æd Shieldaig on−gêan wægn hrêoh hunta ymbe duguð ðridda nu geong môna of ðone as gêar 1108. Hé þǣm worde ðêah ðæge pro wîte onwindan âîeðan wægn smiððe samðe in phrase samðsamð
ðær wýscan gnêðnes râd îsen. stæfr¯æw rîm un−l¯æd ðone as sidhe dêaðcwylmende, ð¯ær and there ymbe eftsîð dohtor Durnstable swête swilce dimf b¯æm f¯æmne onemn bêga âstîgend mid unblêoh hwît feax. Magon sê gyden âhreddan hêo môdsefa hwæt nâteshwôn scêawian hiere of hê tirgan hearra wyrt−rum to duguð hidercyme gearmæ_lum.

Hermione looked at it for a good 30 minutes before giving up, "I have no idea what language this is written in."

"Apparently English, as it's from the section on Scottish history, and as far as I know they spoke English in 1108."

"Maybe Madam Pince will have an idea."

"I'll go ask."

Harry carefully closes up the book with a piece of blank parchment on the edge to mark the place. Then takes the book to Madam Pince.

"Excuse me Madam Pince, do you know if there's any way to read the text in these books?" He lays the book down and opens it to the necessary passage.

"Aye, you read more modern books until they make sense and then read the older books. You could also ask some of the oldest paintings to teach you if you can find one that you can understand."

"Would you know where to find one of those paintings?"

"I'm a librarian not a teacher or historian, so no I don't. I can point you to any of the books you may need in here, I can tell you about book care and maintenance, but I can't tell you where to find a painting that is actually old enough to do what you want."

Dejected he returns to the table, packs up the books and returns them to the shelves before sitting down next to Hermione.

"No luck?"

"Not as such, I either need to read enough older books that I can go back to even older until it starts to make sense or find a portrait in this vast castle that changes it's layout all the sodding time that can read and speak the language and also speak modern enough English that I can understand it."

"So no translation spells, or the like?"

"Not that she mentioned. Though I'm not sure how that would even work."

Hermione continued her research as Harry amused himself with some of the other books in the Library related to their schoolwork. She wasn't sure why he'd chosen to stay with her, but it was nice and she'd missed him while they were on holiday. Her hand strayed to the locket that he'd bought her for Christmas, yep, missed him.

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A few days later Hedwig arrived with a note for Hermione. She pointedly ignored Harry because she'd been banished from the dorm by McGonagall to much amusement of the rest of the first years when Harry tried to beg for her forgiveness. Imperiously she handed the letter off to Hermione and then stole all the bacon off Harry's plate before flying away.

She unfolded the note and read it

Hermine

I know you have Chirpy, would you be able to come down after class to help me find Nibbler as he's disappeared and isn't in his normal hiding spots.

Hagrid

She passed the note over to Harry, "Well I know what I'm doing this afternoon."

"I'll come along if you want." Lavender peered over Harry's shoulder to read the note.

"It'll be nice to have the company"

"Would you mind if I came, I could practice the eye thing." Lavender asked

"Sure, why not make it a girls thing while we're at it."

"That sounds like a great idea, I'll get Pav to try and get a picnic basket together and we can all help and then share cakes and stuff with him."

Hermione shook her head, sarcasm and subtly was lost on Lavender when she wanted to do something.

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That afternoon saw seven girls crowding around the door to Hagrid's hut, Harry was wearing her new and improved look and had changed into a girls uniform to fit in with the rest. Hagrid opened the door and looked at the gathered girls and then stopped when his eyes came to Harry.

"Dear Merlin, Lily." He breathed as he held his hand to his chest.

"Sorry Mr Hagrid, I'm Harry. But thank you for telling me that I look like my Mother."

"Ah, sorry 'bout that, and Mr Hagrid was my father, just call me Hagrid. Well there's a lot of ya so it might be a squeeze, but come on in. Don't mind Fang he's just noisy."

The seven of them trooped in and found a seat wherever they could after they'd had the obligatory sniff and slobber from Fang. Kellah didn't react well to that, but it turns out that Fay and Melissa are both dog people and were happy to keep Fang distracted with hugs, scritches, and pats on the other side of the hut. Harry noticed that Hermione's eyes had already been drawn to the only piece of writing currently visible in the hut, it looked like it was a newspaper clipping on a scrapbook.

Parvati put the picnic basket down on the counter, before she said "I had to get Susan's help to find the kitchens, did you know that the Hufflepuff dorms are very close to the entrance? But I told the elves, and I never knew there were so many elves in the castle, what we were doing and before I knew it they'd filled this basket and shoved it in my hands. Lavender, you get to pick up snacks next time as it took me longer to get out with only the one basket, and a couple of biscuits to tide me over, than it did to get this first one. I swear they've weaponised that disappointed look that kittens and puppies give when you're not doing what they want.

"Anyway, after Lav has done her thing and then Harry or Hermione find your missing pet we can have tea and cakes," she glances into the basket, then slams it shut, "and sandwiches, butterbeers, salad, and I think I saw a bone of something."

"Aww, ya shouldn't 'ave done, ah always 'ave rock cakes and tea for guests."

Harry speaks up excitedly, "I read about those in my mothers journal, is it true that you've got a Cerberus?"

"Oh, Fluffy, yes I'd let you meet him but he's currently on the third floor helping guard the stone for the 'eadmaster. I shouldn't 'ave said that."

Parvati interrupted the conversation before it could get started, "Lavender, could you do your thing so that it doesn't get forgotten and then we can talk about Harry's mother."

"Oh, yes ah forgot about nibbler, ah didn't think anyone else could see 'im 'part from 'arry and 'ermione."

"They can see them all the time, but it seems like it's something that any witch or wizard could learn to do. It just takes time and effort, I wasn't even trying to learn just supporting them in their evening meditations, same as the rest of us. Just give me a moment and I'll see what I can see." Lavender then closed her eyes in a light meditation before opening them with a slight glow visible to Harry and Hermione. She started to look around when Chirpy squirmed free from Hermione and climbed up Lavenders robes while another aictuilaxr jumped down onto her shoulder. She fell backward on giggling on the bed as two sets of tentacles tickled her face and ears trying to get more of the magic she'd used to try and see Nibbler.

Harry smiled at Lavender and then said to Hagrid, "Well I think she's found him, not the way she was expecting though. He seems to have built a nest up there." She points to where he was hiding.

With that Parvati starts passing out the food and drink and they start chatting, some about the Harry's parents and other funny stories from Hagrid's time working at the school, some about the various creatures that he looked after and a promise to show them a unicorn, just not at the moment as there were problems in the forest that had them spooked. The only awkward spot was when Harry nudged Hermione to stop reading and partipate.

"Huh, what? I was just reading an article about a Gringotts breaking in at the end of July. Apparently nothing was stolen." She responded defensively.

"'ey, there's no need to worry about that, ah emptied the vault earlier in the day. Ah shouldn't 'ave said that. Ignore what ah said, it's between Flamel and the 'eadmaster."

With that the conversation carried on, with the occasional futile admonishment from Hermione such as "No Fay, we're can't go and play with Fluffy, I don't care how cute he sounds.", attempts at eating a rock cake to be polite, and a brief detour into their meditations every night, the afternoon turned to evening and time to head to dinner and the chatting circle.

45. Chapter 45

AN: I'd like to thank IndigoSynopsis for her help with the description of how Harry was feeling in the infirmary.

7th November 1971

I think I've just discovered the best thing about the magical world. Contraceptive potions. I was unlucky enough to start during primary school, and thought I was dying. They've only got heavier and more crampy since then. I could have cursed Jenni when she asked as an aside if there was any reason I wasn't using one. It couldn't be because I grew up in the non-magical world and they don't exist there. Anyway, I'm finally feeling human, and I haven't snapped at anyone all day. I asked, but they wouldn't work for Tunie or Mum as they don't have any magic.

The next couple of months passed without much to comment on.

In the first potions lesson Harry attended with her new look, Professor Snape paled while taking the register and stayed silent for the rest of the lesson. Fay managed to talk everyone into visiting Fluffy, after seeing that he was taking his job seriously she was persuaded that she should ask Hagrid to introduce her next year.

One stand out moment was when Hagrid invited Lavender to see Thestrals.

The snow was still thick on the ground, as Hagrid lead the group to a clearing just inside the forest. There was a water trough and a hay basket with wisps of hay still in the bottom. Animal tracks covering the ground showed that the clearing was often used by something. Harry and Hermione could see a small herd of nearly skeletal winged horses on the other side of the meadow eating something. They retched slightly when they realised it was half a dead cow.

Hagrid walked over to the basket and dropped the bale of hay he was carrying inside before turning around, "Oh, yes. Ah forgot to mention that they're omnivores. Can anyone else see them?"

Kellah shakely raised her hand looking ill. She then found herself enfolded in the gentlest and fuzziest hug she'd ever experienced as Hagrid comforted her.

"It's ok, they have a defensive mechanism that means only those that have seen and understand death can see them. I'm sorry that you've had to see someone die so young, but it happens. I'll make ya some hot chocolate when we get back to me hut."

"Lavender, would you be able to do ya thing and see if you can see them?"

She concentrated and then let out a "Woah" as she could apparently see something. They spent a while petting the invisible horses before heading back to his Hut. There Hagrid made Kellah hot chocolate and placed a pot of tea for everyone else with a plate of his rock cakes. He then launched into telling them about Thestrals and their origins.

"… Legend has that it that the original breeding pairs were taken as spoils of war from Sidhe wild hunts. Now, no one has seen any of the higher fae for at least 600 years, so the story is suspect. But it makes for good fireside stories around 'alloween."

Harry and Hermione shared a glance before Harry spoke up, "Do you know many of those stories?"

"Aye, ah do. Ain't much ta do after the sun goes down round 'ere so most head down to the pub and swap old stories. O'course as old Finnigan is nearing 200, those are some really old stories."

Kellah speaks up quietly, "Do you think you could share those stories?"

"Ah don't rightly know, some of em ain't for little ears ya know."

Parvati joins in as if it's a foregone conclusion that he will, "We could do it Fridays instead of the chat, then we'll have the fire in the great hall, and I'm sure we can all have a hot chocolate to drink while you tell them."

"Well I dunno."

"Right it's settled then, I'll talk to McGonagall and get Susan and Padma to talk to their heads so that it can be sorted out."

It took her a lot of wheedling and wrangling, and maybe a little blackmail when Hagrid approached Lavender on tips for how to go about learning to meditate. But most of the first years and some of the later years got to enjoy story time around the fire by Hagrid. That expanded to include the other older teachers like McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick.

To make matters harder for Harry, Tonks taught her dorm mates how to cast the stinging hex, and told them to use it on Harry whenever they saw that he wasn't in one of his or her new base forms. Even when she complained she just laughed and said that her Mother had done the same thing to her which is why she had as much control as she currently does.

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This, Harry reflected, was probably the worst experience of her life so far. She was doubled over on the floor of the common room holding her abdomen and crying in pain. It hadn't been so bad when she got up and found a bit of blood when she wiped. The other girls congratulated her on becoming a woman. Then it was just a dull ache. But she tried to turn into a boy when she got downstairs and instead of changing her insides cramped like crazy and here she is. Oh look, Ron's just gone back to his dorm room, the coward. She hears someone coming down the girls stairs then hurrying back up. A few minutes later there's a flash of red light and everything mercifully goes dark.

Harry wakes up again on a hospital bed before immediately curling up again. Mary the 7th year prefect is talking to Madam Pomfrey before going off.

"Well young lady, what happened to you?"

Harry tries to explain, she really does, but she's in too much pain.

"Very well, drink this next time there's a pause. I don't like giving them out for issues like this, so don't expect it in future."

Harry nodded, and gulped down the potion as soon as she was able to, the pain dying back to merely feeling like someone was had their fist inside her trying to squash something than someone had placed it on an anvil and was hitting it with a hammer.

"Thank you!" she said with as much feeling as possible.

"Well now that you're able to talk to me, care to tell me what happened?"

She took a deep breath, and then started, "I woke up and discovered it was the first day of my period, it wasn't that bad so I got up and was going to come to you for a potion.

"I then saw Ron and tried to change into a boy as I was going over to say Hi. Next thing I know it feels like someone's trying to beat something inside me into a pancake and all I can do is writhe on the floor in pain."

"Ah, very well, I'll do some diagnostics, but I think I know what's happening."

A couple of minutes later and some humming she finishes, "Yes, it's what I suspected. You young lady need to change back to a girl."

"But I'm already a girl!"

"Your body is still trying to change into a boy, and it can't because your uterus is currently busy expelling the lining that it didn't use. Tell me, were there any other times that you remember when you couldn't change?"

"No?"

"Well humour me and try and change to a girl."

She did and the pain immediately died down to a little worse than it was that morning before dying away completely due to the pain potion.

She let out a sigh of relief "That feels so much better, Thank You!"

"Very well, I want you to start keeping a diary about your body and bring it to me every month, I want you to note when you change and what you were feeling at the time."

"Yes Madam Pomfrey." She said with dejected voice.

"Well off with you then, you've still got a bit of time to grab breakfast if you're quick."

She quickly ran off to the great hall where she was met by the girls looking concerned. After briefly explaining the situation, Hermione pulled out a blank notebook and handed it to her, saying she always keeps a spare as she goes through them so quickly. After some prodding she asked Tonks if she'd ever experienced something like this. Surprisingly, the answer was yes, she once tried to get it over with quicker and her body rebelled until she stopped trying.

The next 5 days alternated between being fine and feeling like her body was the wrong shape and needing to climb out of her skin. After copious journal entries Hermione glanced over it and pointed out that all the bad times were at times or situations when she'd have normally been a boy for something. The only saving grace was that after the pain potion had worn off, she was allowed to take the contraceptive potion that eased period symptoms, so the actual effects felt more like she had mild constipation than even the small amount of pain, and the bleeding changed to just spotting.

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A few days before the easter break, Hermione pulls Harry over to one side.

"Harry, there's something I need you to look at in the Library, do you think we could to it later?"

"Sure, let me know when, I assume it's a private study subject?"

"It is."

It turned out that he couldn't get away on his own until the next day, so Hermione was starting to fret when they met up and she pulled out a book on alchemists of all things. When she turned it around and made him read the text his jaw dropped, and he looked at her.

The philosophers stone is the pinnacle of the Alchemical arts. Its creation has only ever been confirmed once by Nicolas Flamel, who keeps it under lock and key at all times. Reports from those few lucky enough to have seen it say that it is a blood red hexagonal crystal around the size of a man's fist. It has one end cut to a point while the other end looks to be uncut. A philosophers stone is rumoured to be able to transmute base metals into gold, as well as generate the Elixir of Life. Though we can assume the latter is true due to the fact that Flamel and his wife have passed their third century of life as of the writing of this book, he has not allowed anyone to observe while he uses the stone.

"Oh…"

"Is that all you can say, Oh?"

"We never did ask McGonagall about that did we?"

"It's still in my bag."

"Right, so you think we should be writing to Mum, Karen, and your parents and asking to come home for the holiday?"

"And ask them to make an appointment with the Goblins."

"I'll try and get Hedwig, you write the note."

Harry managed to alert Hedwig to his need and met her in the entrance hall while Hermione scribbled a note with a brief outline of what they needed.

"We need to get a reply tomorrow, do you think you can do that? OK, the note is for Mum."

46. Chapter 46

18th July 1978

I've been going to the Wizarding bank a couple of times a year for the last several years now. But it's only now that I'm with James that I think I'm starting to understand them. We had to wait in line, as I've had to do many times in the past, however James has never exactly been known for his patience, unless he's working on something. By the time we got to the front he was short with the teller and came close to accusing them of taking their time. At that point I experienced the worst service I have ever had in Gringotts. Every query needed a managers input, he needed to present his key at least 5 different times, and then they needed a signature on a few forms just for what was originally a routine withdrawal.

They are a stoic and subtle people who take great pride in their work no matter what they work as. Their sense of humour is equally understated and were it not for the fact I was waiting with James, I would have found the whole situation absolutely hilarious as the master prankster of Hogwarts was pranked by the very best.

While she was waiting for the train to arrive with Karen, Petunia reflected that the last 3 months had been busy but peaceful. When she wasn't looking after Dudley and Ginny she was learning about financing and investing, magic, or property management in order to fill her duties as Harry's Magical Guardian to the best of her ability. While she couldn't do anything beyond maintenance of the properties, she did have limited control over rent increases and investment of funds in order to maintain the accounts. She and Karen had decided that the extra control that becoming Regent would give here wasn't worth the extra hassle being classed as a witch would bring to her life, such as not just needing to uphold the secrecy of the Magical world, but actively not allowed to talk about it with non-magicals regardless of her relationship to them. Not allowed to work with the goblins was also a large factor, as they had a rich culture and history that had proven useful in several situations they'd come across, and the advice they were willing to give was priceless for strangers to the magical world.

Both she and Karen had been surprised at just how quickly Ginny adapted to the muggle world, though she supposed it was down to the fact that she still had that childish curiosity about things and was not yet afraid to try things to see if they worked. It had also surprised her about how Ginny's presence had had a positive effect on Dudley forcing him to learn to behave and also try harder at his studies. It didn't hurt that she was actually stronger than him.

She grasped Karen's hand as she looked over at Dan and Emma with a concerned expression. Their note hadn't said anything other than they needed to come home and see the goblins about an urgent matter.

As she started to fidget Karen brought her into a hug and whispered into her ears, "Don't worry love, they'll be here. I've heard a couple of the other people saying that sometimes it's a little late coming into London because it has to stop in places to allow a muggle train to pass."

She melted slightly and relaxed, and wasn't that strange, a year ago she'd thought lesbians were weird people that had no business being around right thinking people, and now she was so deeply in love with Karen. She absently kissed Karen as an expression of love and reassurance while she was thinking.

She occasionally missed Vernon when she was dealing with Harry's finances, but it felt like someone else had been living her life until Harry's letter came. Andromeda said that it was a perfectly normal reaction for someone in her situation, and that she would occasionally have flashes where it came back in full force. Eventually she'd be able to integrate her 3 lives, the one from before the abuse, live with Vernon, and her current life, but it would take time. The occlumency she was learning would help with that, but she had to go slow as part of the process was to relive each memory and process the emotions so that she accepted it was part of her past.

That was another thing, while she'd been able to start with Andromeda back in February, the Headmaster was still stonewalling having a dedicated Mind Healer visiting Harry for some reason. This means that if nothing changes they will need to start sessions during the summer and then have some top up sessions during the Christmas Holidays.

Karen pokes her hard in the arm.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"You were off with the fairies and didn't respond when I called your name. The train's coming."

It didn't take long after that for them to meet the kids and get the hugs out of the way. Dan then held Hermione by both shoulders and said "We've got an appointment with Kragnast, if this isn't as urgent as you made it out to be we will be confiscating your wand and books, and you will have to go for the rest of the holiday without seeing Harry."

At the last bit, Harry flashed from being a girl to a boy and stepped up next to Hermione protectively. "That won't be necessary Sir."

Dan glanced at Petunia, who nodded, "Well maybe not the last bit then, and didn't I ask you to call me Dan or Dad?"

Harry's posture relaxed, though he didn't switch back go being a girl, "Yes Dan."

Getting to Gringotts proved easy with 3 adults that could apparate and no luggage. When they arrived, Hermione hugged her Mum and Dad and congratulated them on learning how to do it. After all the goblins they met bowed to her and addressed her as "Revered One", They were then lead to Kragnast's office, and the markings looked the same as the first time Petunia came.

Kragnast looked up as they were led in, "Welcome, there seem to be a lot of you. Do you have your… Of course, you do. Filrig, we need non-conjured chairs for our guests."

Once everyone was seated Kragnast opened the conversation, "How may Gringotts help you this evening?"

Harry looked at Hermione reassuringly who spoke up, "We accidentally came across some property of one of your customers, and we would be grateful if you would be able to return it."

Kragnast assumed a carefully blank expression before he responded by rote memorisation, "We at Gringotts must apologise, however according to the treaty of 1817, we are unable to facilitate any communication between two witches or wizards. This includes but is not limited to exchange of goods or funds, introductions, and personal letters. We are allowed to send out invites to an arranged meeting between two or more parties that already have a relationship but that is the extent that the law will allow."

When he saw Harry and Hermione visibly deflate he hoped that the adults would be able to read between the lines, as he had come to respect Petunia.

Hermione spoke up in a small voice, "Thank you, I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"Now hold on there sweetheart, why don't you tell us what this is about and let us see if there's anything that can be done to help."

"But he just said that he can't help us."

"No, he just said that he can't help you or Harry. You are both legally witches, and sometimes Harry's a wizard."

A glimmer of home appeared in her eyes, "What do you mean Daddy?"

"It was explained, very carefully I will add, that there is a very clear legal definition of what constitutes a witch or wizard. That being any magical child under the age of 17 that has not yet passed their wanded OWL exams, and any adult over the age of 17 that has. It then goes on to state that any human witch or wizard that fails to complete their wanded OWL's by the age of 17 will have their wand snapped and their magic bound. Are you following me?"

"I think so, but doesn't that mean that you're not a wizard?"

"It does indeed."

She then pulls out a blood red stone, "So that means that if I give this to you, you can get it back to Nicolas Flamel and explain just how we found it, and that we're sorry for not handing it back to a teacher at the time, but we forgot. He could then get his mirror back."

"I will need to check with Kragnast, but it's entirely possible. How about it Kragnast? Would Petunia or I be able to return this stone to Mr Flamel along with a letter explaining how it came into our possession, using Gringotts as an intermediary?"

A sly smile crossed Kragnast's face, "I think we might be able to arrange that. My apologies Hermione, however the wording of the treaties are very clear, and while we are sovereign in Gringotts, we are severely limited in our ability to work with you, and others like you."

"How does that work then, as Ron said that one of his brothers works for you?" Harry asked.

"We are allowed" Kragnast bites out, "to advertise jobs through the goblin liaison office in the ministry. They then take a 10% cut on the wages offered. We are then allowed to contact similar offices in other governments and tender for work. The only reason we are able to do any business apart from banking is due to how much higher our standards are compared to our competition, as blood status means nothing to us."

"That doesn't sound very nice, Mum, I don't think I want to be a witch anymore." Hermione stated with conviction.

"I don't think you can just stop being a witch."

"Well, you can, there's a form for witches and wizards who decide to forsake the magical world where they give up their wands. But unless you can prove that you would die without your magic, they will bind it, and you would no longer be able to do business in the magical world."

Hermione starts to cry, "I thought house-elves were bad enough, but at least there's a reason for their bonds even if the practice of selling them is slavery, but now I'm going to be forced to choose between being part of an oppressive society, or not having magic. Daddy, you have to fix this."

"I'm not sure I can sweetie, but I'll try, I really will." Dan picks her up gently and hands her to Emma, who hugs her while he finishes the letter.

Harry fidgets caught between staying put and going to comfort Hermione until Karen pushes him out of his seat, and he launches himself at Hermione and Emma changing to a girl mid step. Kragnast raises an ear at that.

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There was only one wrinkle in the lives of the adults for the next two weeks, and that was when Harry and Hermione found out that Petunia was making regular trips into the dream at night. It was completely accidental, as Karen just mentioned how she got lonely in bed when Petunia was travelling. Harry overheard and immediately jumped to the right conclusion. The fact that Karen was sharing a bed with Petunia either not bothering him or the implication of it not registering. This lead to Hermione finding out, and then they demanded that they be allowed to do so too as they'd been meditating longer than Petunia. Finally, the adults caved when it became clear that it was a case of either do it with supervision or they'll do it on their own.

And so, Harry and Hermione became the newest magicals to be referred to as Revered Ones by the goblins. They also found that it was much much harder to only open their magic slowly than meditating would have suggested. All too soon they were heading back to Hogwarts with the promise that they would only practice this on Fridays or Saturdays.

47. Chapter 47

8th October 1975

Sometimes it seems like the wizarding world makes a trade between the stupid and the bloody stupid. Potter and his friends as an example, cobbled together a rather impressive map of the school last year that they've tried to keep secret. If they wanted to keep it secret they shouldn't have worked on it in the common room, it took me all of 30 seconds and a brief distraction to copy all of their notes for it, once I improved on it I put a copy in the back of this Journal so that I don't have to say any stupid passwords. Back to the subject at hand, they decided they wanted to go to Hogsmeade a week early, so what did they do? Use their marvellous new map that shows everyone in the castle, and has a special mark for Filch and his current cat. No, they all crowd under James' Cloak and shuffle off to a secret entrance. They even remembered to cast silencing and scent masking before they left the dorm. The stupid idiots just forgot to take into account that they weren't first years anymore, so 4 of them under the cloak left their ankles visible to the world.

I bet they were giggling too much to even notice McGonagall following them to the one-eyed witch and catch them as they opened that secret exit, which incidentally only goes to Hogsmeade. I wouldn't mind, but I'm running low on sugar quills and I was going to grab some this weekend, and now the teachers are on high alert.

They got back to Hogwarts to find lavender playing chess with Ron and chatting in the great hall. Harry made a note to question her about that later so that she had all the gossip. She then made a note to talk to Hermione later about that thought, as she was sure that gossip used to be a bad thing.

They quickly settled back into a routine that lasted for a few weeks before Ron ended up in the hospital wing for some reason. That evening Lavender approached Harry.

"Harry?"

"Would it be ok to borrow your invisibility cloak tomorrow night?"

"Why?"

"Hagrid hatched a dragon, and we've arranged for some of Charlie's friends to pick it up from the astronomy tower at midnight."

Harry briefly panics, "Are you all suicidal? What about the witching hour?"

"That's not until one in the morning."

"Oh yeah, the clocks changed. Why do wizards even follow non-magical time changes?"

"Dunno, never thought about it."

"So why exactly are the top of the Astronomy tower?"

"Apparently, they're flying down from the dragon reserve in the Outer Hebrides, and they're camping to save money. Can I borrow the cloak or not?"

"I just want to clear up something first. So just to get this clear, you want to smuggle a sleeping dragon to the top of the astronomy tower, so that some dragon handlers that are on their way home from the Outer Hebrides dragon sanctuary can fly in on broomsticks and pick it up?"

"Yes!" Lavender looks like she's starting to get frustrated.

"Why don't you see if you can just get Hagrid to walk to the village as he often does, buy them a drink and then see them off with it?

"They'd probably appreciate the break too. If they say no, then I'll lend you the cloak, OK?"

"Thanks Harry, I'll get Hagrid to send an owl tonight and let you know."

With that she runs off.

"What was that about Harry?" Hermione asks as she comes out of the bathroom

Harry filled her in, to which she responded, "Good idea, though the dragon keepers probably thought of that, and didn't have time to land in order to make it to their camping spot on time."

"Oh." Her expression dropped.

"No, you did the right thing by getting them to ask. As it's always better to ask for clarification than it is just assume. But in this case it wasn't Lavender and Hagrid that arranged the timing and location, it was the handlers."

"Thanks Hermione." She brightened a little, but it still hurt a little.

It turned out that they did still need the cloak, which lead to his current meeting with the Headmaster.

"Harry, thank you for coming. Please take a seat. Lemon drop?" The Headmaster indicates a chair and then waves his hand at a bowl of lemon drops on the desk.

"No Thank you sir."

"Now, I have recently come into possession of something of yours." He takes the invisibility cloak out of a drawer and places it on the desk.

"Oh, I can explain."

"No need, Lavender and Parvati were caught out of bounds by Professor McGonagall. Indeed, I suspect that if it wasn't for the late hour they'd have got away with some docked points. However, they will need to attend a detention.

"Before I give this back to you with a warning that next time it comes into my possession due to being used to break the rules I will keep it until you return home for the holidays, would you mind if we had a chat about your scar and what happened the night your parents died?"

"Uh, sure, though I'd prefer it if my aunt was here."

"I was under the impression that Petunia was a muggle."

"Ah… she's my magical guardian."

"Very well, I'll send her an owl."

"Erm, we do live in a non-magical area, so it might be better to Floo call her."

"You have a Floo connected?"

"We got it connected last year, it was very useful for Christmas shopping."

"Very well, if you give me the address, I'll arrange a meeting and summon you when she arrives. I'll also give you your cloak back with the warning then too."

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A thoughtful Harry walked back to the Dorm and absentmindedly changed back to a girl. Then stopped on the stairs. When did she start thinking of being a girl as being her default? With that thought she went to find Hermione. She found her in the Library of all places. Why she didn't check there first she wasn't sure, but there you go.

"Hermione?"

Hermione looks up from the book she's studying. "Yes?"

"Would you mind if I talked to you about a couple of things that I've noticed about myself?"

"Sure, can you wait until I finish up here?"

"I can." Harry grabs a book on some of their class material and sits down to read while she finishes up.

Around half an hour later she puts her quill down and looks up at Harry, she watches the way that she's started to suck on the end of her hair when she's concentrating and how reactive it is to her emotions, with ruby sparkles appearing with increasing intensity when she's interested or excited.

"You wanted to talk to me?" she smiles as the hair she's sucking on immediately pulls back behind her ear, the sparkles disappear, and she puts the book down.

"Oh, yes, sorry about that."

"It's ok, what did you want to talk about?"

"It's just well… it seems so silly now, it's not that important."

"Harry, it concerned you enough to want to talk about it, so why don't you tell me and then you can stop thinking about it. Now knowing you I bet it's to do with your scar."

"Actually, no, apart from DADA, it doesn't hurt at all, so there's no change there. It's just that, this is silly." Her ears start to go red with embarrassment.

"I promise I won't laugh."

"IveStartedToFeelMoreAtHomeAsAGirlThanAsABoy." Harry blurts out.

Hermione has to struggle not to laugh, "I think I got that, but could you say it again more slowly?"

"I feel like I'm a girl that turns into a boy rather than the other way around."

"Harry, that's great."

"It is?"

"Well I think it is, but I'm not a mind healer. But think about it, you've spent most of your time here as a girl, and apart from me, you made your first friends here as a girl. You also spend most of your time here as a girl.

"I can write to Daddy and see if he can find any books on psychology that would help."

"I don't think you need to do that. Is it weird that I've also started to enjoy gossiping?"

Hermione shuffles a little uncomfortably, "I must confess, it's not just you. I think it's because we've been socialising more because you keep taking my books away."

Harry holds her hands over her heart dramatically "Gasp! Hermione just confessed to learning something without a book? Oh my god!"

Hermione reaches over with her parchment roll and swipes half-heartedly at her, "Prat, it's Merlin not my god."

She then freezes as Harry flashes into a boy and has a look of panic on his face for a moment.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry, I forgot."

A moment later he recovers and starts laughing weakly. "It's ok Hermione, it's not your fault. I just remembered my Aunt took a swing at me with a frying pan when I was younger. But mum's not like that."

"How could she do something like that?"

Harry shrinks back into her seat, "I don't think I could talk it through without support right now. I'm not saying I won't, just that it's going to be hard and I'll probably cry a lot."

Hermione warred in herself between her need to know now and her first friend's distress, eventually her concern won out, "OK, I won't forget, but maybe talking about it at school is a bad idea."

"Mum's going to be coming to the school soon." Harry changed the subject and hoped that Hermione would go along with it.

"Oh? What happened?"

"Lavender and Parvati got caught after they delivered the dragon."

"Ouch, so why does that involve you?"

"The headmaster wanted to see me, he says he'd like to talk to me about something to do with my scar. I said I didn't want to talk about it without Mum there, though I used her other name. He was surprised that she is magical, and once I told him she was my magical guardian he seemed to be ok with it."

They both packed the books away and then started to head back to the Dorm before dinner. As they were walking up the grand staircase Hermione stopped suddenly.

"I've just realised something, we haven't been able to practice delving yet."

"You're right, we haven't. I think it's because we're still doing the meditation with the others before bed, and we're not good with just pretending to sleep."

"I wonder if there are any ways to wake up unobtrusively, I just go and have a look." Hermione got a couple of steps down the stairs before a gentle grip on her arm caused her to stop.

"Hermione… We were going to get ready for dinner."

With that they finished returning to the dorm and went to dinner and the evening chat.

48. Chapter 48

3rd May 1977

I've lost it, I know I've lost it. I realised today that I have naturalised, and I've picked up the institutional stupidity that I've been deriding through my schooling. Oh, retrospect is still fine, though I can't promise that I'll still be like this in 5-10 years' time. But at the moment I can still recognise that today I gave absolutely no thought to how monumentally dangerous the artefact we were looking at actually is, or how it's just kept in a store room with other equally dangerous artifacts. The soul defences between these artefacts and the wider school population, secrecy and a locked door. No wards, alerts, password, portrait, or even a physical marker to show that someone has been in unauthorised.

What is so dangerous you ask? We were investigating the rune work on the Mirror of Erised as part of our NEWT runes class. It's an artefact that has a mild compulsion to look at it, coupled with an illusion that makes the viewer see something that they deeply desire. The longer they look at it the more detailed the illusion becomes, and thus the more compelling the image. Our professor summed up just how dangerous it is with one sentence, "Many a witch and wizard has wasted away in front of this mirror pining for the unattainable desires that it shows.". All I could think of at the time was "This is really good rune work, I wonder how they did x.".

I think I know where this mindset comes from, it's the fact that if it's not instantly fatal or in some way cursed, there's nothing we come across in day to day life that can't be fixed by an overnight stay in the hospital wing at worst. Lost your leg, no worries we'll have you a new one grown while you sleep. Blinded by a potions blowback? You'll have a new set of eyes by tomorrow evening. It's only spells like that one that Snape designed last year that even come close to causing problems, of if too much time passes between injury and treatment. Madam Pomfrey said something about how the body reflects the soul which reflects the body when I asked her while visiting James earlier in the year. I can't say I really understand what she meant, but I assume that it's something that would be covered in depth if I took up healing as a career.

This has been a longer entry than normal, and so I need to head to bed.

It took Albus a frustrating week to arrange a meeting where both he and Petunia didn't have prior commitments for a few hours, but eventually he had the two of them sat in front of him in his domain. He quickly looked at Harry's scar to ensure that legimancy was still working on it, which it was before he began.

"Petunia, thank you for coming, sorry that we couldn't arrange this sooner."

"Thank you headmaster."

"Before we begin, would you mind assuaging an old man's curiosity?"

"Not really." She responded, letting a little of her old self out in her voice.

"Very well. I'll get right to the meat of the matter then. Since I left Harry in your capable hands I have been working on a way to remove the tainted magic from his."

"Her." Petunia interrupts.

"Excuse me?"

"She is sitting right next to me, and is clearly a girl, so the correct pronoun is Her."

"Sorry, her scar. Earlier this year I had a break through, and found an obscure reference to a ritual that would allow me to move it to something else. I can't promise that it would be painless, but it shouldn't cause him any lasting."

"Her"

"Her any lasting harm. Indeed it may well be that he notices an improvement in cognitive abilities and suffers less pain.", he was pleased to see that Harry flowed back into his proper form.

"And how soon do you think you could do this?"

"Pending any emergencies, I could do it this weekend."

"Harry, what do you think? Let the headmaster do the ritual or ask St Mungo's or the goblins if they could do it for us?"

"I don't know m Aunt Petunia."

"Of course, once I've verified that it has been removed correctly, I'll have no further objections to a mind healer visiting on a weekly basis."

Petunia looked sharply at Harry and raised an eyebrow, to which Harry nodded.

"Very well, I'm willing to let you do this, but I'd like Healer Gosling present to monitor Harry's health in case something goes wrong."

"I'm sure that can be arranged, though you'll need to arrange to pay for her time."

Petunia glanced at Harry again, concern flickering across her face, "We can do that."

"Then it's agreed, will you be ok with doing it this weekend?"

She glances at harry who gives a small nod, "Pending Healer Goslings availability, we should be able to do so."

"Then I'll move onto the other reason I had to see Harry. His invisibility cloak." He takes the cloak out of the drawer and puts it on his desk.

Looking upset Harry opens his mouth and closes it again when Petunia gently puts her hand on his leg.

"May I ask why you did not inform me during our Floo calls that you were holding onto a Potter Family heirloom?" Petunia sits up straighter and her voice takes on a more formal tone.

"It was found at the top of the Astronomy tower, where we believe it was used by a couple of students out of hours."

"That doesn't explain why you failed to inform Mr Potter's magical guardian that you had possession of a family heirloom, or do the school rules not apply to Mr Potter?"

"I must confess Madam, that I am not aware of which rules you are talking about."

Petunia pulls out a folder of paper, each page embossed with a paper stamp, before flicking through.

"Here we go, 'Where a known family heirloom comes into the possession of the staff, they will ensure that it is returned to the current head of house, the Regent, or the current legal guardian of the child who owns the item. Along with this they will provide an explanation of how it came into their possession so that punishment can be meted out if it is deemed necessary.'"

"Madam, what document is it that you are referring to?"

"This is a certified copy of the Hogwarts charter, copied from one that the Grangers found in a secondhand bookshop. It only cost a sickle to have the goblins certify it."

Albus remembered something about a copy of the charter having being found, but for the life of him he couldn't remember when.

"Is there any reason why we don't have a copy?"

"I believe the Deputy Headmistress does, and there's also one copy in each house. None of which are certified though."

"Very, well, I'll leave this in your care then." He hands the cloak over to Petunia.

"Thank you, if there's nothing else I'll escort Harry to the entrance hall, and see myself out."

"No that's all".

As they left he slumped back in his chair, why did they have to bring up the rules? He had the original copy in his chambers along with the student copy that should be in the Library. He also distinctly remembered misfiling the Ministry copy back in the 50's when he'd first become headmaster. He put his head in his hands as he realised just where the extra paperwork had come from, if Minerva has a copy of the rules.

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Once they got past the Gargoyle Petunia swept Harry into a hug.

"Oh my dear heart, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. He had no right to keep referring to you as something you weren't at the time."

Harry melted into her female form and started crying in the hug as the tension she'd felt started to let go.

After a moment Petunia pulled away slightly, "Harry, would you mind showing me to the McGonagall's office, as I need to arrange for Dudley to attend next year, he and Ginny have been doing really well, and so I'm going to try and take him in far enough to allow him to use a wand without being dangerous." Harry nodded and dried her eyes with a hankie before leading her through the school.

"I've managed a few layers. How about you guys?"

"We keep falling asleep because we're still practicing with the others, and then need to go to bed to keep up appearances."

"Depending on how they're doing, why not broach the subject of all of you trying it together in September?"
"That could work, and it would mean that everyone has something to work towards."

"What I will say is that the first few times you try to go deeper, you need to go as slowly as possible as it's surprisingly hard to maintain control until you get used to it.

"How are you doing?"

"I don't know. The news that Dudley's going to be coming next year is throwing me a little, as I'm not sure I can forget what he was like before. I still get the same thing with you mum, but it's different because you're different from then. He was still the same when I saw him over Christmas."

"I don't expect you do, but I hope that you'll be able to give him a fair chance over summer."

"I'll try mum, I'll try."

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Sunday found Albus standing at the edge of a ritual circle, a stunned rabbit on table next to him along with a silver potions knife, bowl and brush.

"As one of only a few qualified ritual masters in the country, I feel that I should inform you of what we will be doing in this ritual.

"The ritual itself is fairly simple, and requires a few runes to be drawn on your head and shoulders Harry. Once that's done you will need to lay in the centre of this circle and with your head in the larger of the two inner circles. I will then put the receptacle into the smaller of the two circles. Once that is done I will draw some runes between those circles and step out. When I finish drawing those runes you'll be immobilised until the ritual completes. Once outside I will pour a little magic into the circle to activate it while chanting a short phrase in Ancient Egyptian. Once I do this, the curse fragment will be drawn out of your scar into the new receptacle. You'll know when it's finished as the runes that I painted on you will evaporate and you'll be able to move again.

"The runes themselves are there to anchor the bits that I don't want to be transferred to the receptacle, and require a post newt study of Egyptian runes to understand. However, before we get started we need you to strip and put on a linen loin cloth behind the screen over there. We, that is Healer Gosling and I, will then purge your body of any magic that isn't specifically anchored to you, as such magic can interfere with rituals with unintended consequences. Traditionally this would have been accompanied with a ritual bath, but as we don't need to worry about woad or other painted magics we will be skipping that step. The last thing for the spectators, the runes need to be drawn in the life blood of a sacrifice. This is why the rabbit is here. Is everyone ready?"

After a round of assent, they began. The ritual itself went off without a hitch, and he had the curse fragment in a small gold mirror, He then checked to ensure that Legimancy worked on it. Before addressing the room.

"I think that went well, from my studies I'm going to need to use Fiendfyre to destroy this as the magic inside it will resist everything else that I know about and am willing to use. So if you'll forgive me I'll leave Harry in your tender care Healer Gosling and deal with this item."

With that Albus leaves and heads up to his office, after seeing Fawkes reaction to the mirror he places it in his bedroom, along with a notebook and dictaquill.

49. Chapter 49

With the deadline for the end of the Hogwarts school fast approaching, Petunia had invited Molly over for afternoon Tea while Karen was at work with Ceeley as her magic was still somewhat unreliable in public.

"How have you been keeping?"

Petunia laughs before continuing, "Though it's not like we don't see enough of each other, but it seems like the right way to start with a cup of tea."

"I know what you mean, but nothing much has changed since I saw you on Monday. How about you?"

"I think I've finally got all of Harry's finances and historical issues sorted out, and I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to go next. As it seems that with Magic, and especially with Ceeley around as well, the housework is really now only half an hour of work a day."

"I'm still not entirely sure how you manage to do so much around the house in such little time, I know I had a big family, but even so, everything seems to take so much longer than it does for you."

"It's the mix of muggle and magical. As long as I can keep my magic under control I can use the washing machine, tumble dryer, food processor, though I don't use that as much as I used to since we got those knives, and hoover. To be fair, it was only when… damn it, who was it that suggested it, blast… thingy pointed out that the animation charm could be used on the hose as easily as it could on a pineapple as they suggest in the books, that that became less of an issue, same with the duster."

"How do you keep it secret then?"

"I do it in the mornings before the curtains are opened downstairs, and no-one can see me doing it upstairs, obviously that's on the rare occasion that Ceeley hasn't done the cleaning before me."

"You mentioned her, but where is she?"

"She goes to work with Karen to help warn her when her magic is going out of control, and also to help cover things up if it does."

"I still don't understand how both of you are still having accidental magic at your age."

"It's to do with how in touch we are with our magic, as we were too old to attend Hogwarts when our magic stabilised enough to be classed as magical, we were never able buy a wand as legally only a witch or wizard can own a wand."

"But you're a witch aren't you?"

"Ah, you'd think that, but the laws actually define a witch or wizard as a magical under the age of 17 that has yet to finish their wanded owls, or a magical that has completed their wanded owls."

"Oh, yes, you told me about that before."

"I did. How do you think Dudley and Ginny are doing with their studies, do you feel like they're prepared to start Hogwarts next year?"

"Oh yes, more than ready, though Dudley had some trouble to start with, it was nothing a couple of stinging hexes and a sticking charm couldn't fix. Now they're both bouncing off each other. Morgana, the other day Ginny remembered that Little Luna existed and took Dudley to meet her. With the way she's improved since you got involve I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't the first Weasley in 200 years to be sorted into Ravenclaw."

"Really? Oh, yes, now she's got over her crush on your Harry, she's moved her fixation on Hermione and Karen, I didn't realise that Karen had so many Mastery qualifications until Ginny told me."

"Oh, yes, that was a surprise to me too, but she brushed it off as one of those things one does when they work in a quiet library. I didn't even know you needed a Mastery to be a librarian until she told me."

"So why were you asking about how the two children were getting on?"

"As you know, I was in an abusive relationship before Harry got his letter." Molly nodded sympathetically.

"Well, it turns out that he was a large part of why my magic came out, as it got really bad once the letter arrived. But we didn't know anything about the magical world at that point. So, as Dudley didn't get a letter, he went to a muggle school till Christmas, but Vernon's disappearance hit him hard and we pulled him due to the bullying. As I couldn't hide the fact that I have magic from him, I promised him that if he improved enough, I'd take him to St Mungo's to get tested and if he had enough magic he'd be able to go to Hogwarts."

"Oh, I think he'll do more than well enough, as they've been looking up so much stuff it's been driving me spare as I don't have the answers to the questions they keep asking. It's why I left them with Arthur while I escaped to have a cup of tea, though I'm not sure who's doing the teaching whenever he's involved. You know, teaching Dudley brought into start relief just how much I do that I take for granted these days. As once he got over his issues of needing to do chores with Ginny, he started bombarding me with so many questions about what I do around the house that I found myself flicking through some of my old textbooks in the evenings just to refresh my memory on why I do them the way I do."

"Tell me about it, I had the same thing with Ginny, all of those books I had to buy just to be able to answer questions like, how to the lights work."

The conversation continued for the rest of the afternoon until the Floo chimed to say that someone was coming through.

Dudley came barrelling into the living room, the door swinging open into the wall with a bang which caused him to freeze with a wince, something that Petunia noted he wouldn't have done a year ago.

"Sorry! Can Luna come round with Ginny so that we can play on the console?"

"What do you think Molly?" Petunia said with a smile.

"As long as they're gentle with the doors I don't think it would be a problem. Have you checked with Xeno whether it's ok?"

"Ah, I'll just go and check."

"Invite him over for a cup of tea while you're at it." Petunia called after Dudley before getting up to check that the terylene curtains were securely in place.

"Molly, would you mind putting a mild obscuring charm on these just in case it get dark and we forget, as I don't know how comfortable, Xeno wasn't it, will be in a muggle area."

Molly reaches into her handbag and pulls out her wand to cast the charms, "Oh good point… yes very good point."

After she'd been introduced to a person who looked like they'd stolen the clothes from a hippy commune and then made robes from them, she had quite a pleasant evening, even if it did get stranger the longer it went on.

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A few days later she took Dudley into her meditation room to talk to him.

"Dudley, I promised at Christmas that I'd try to make you magical if you did well with your studies."

A hopeful look came over his face as she continued. "I spoke with Molly the other day, and she things you've been doing really well, Karen does too."

"Does that mean that I can become magical?"

She laughed at the eagerness in his voice, "Maybe, I need to know that you're ready for it as it will make things harder for you. After all, playing with Piers or Malcom would be much more complicated if you have to worry about not telling him about magic."

Dudley looks down at his hands before replying in a small voice, "I don't think that will be a problem, Ginny and I met them at Easter, and when I wouldn't go to the offie with them, and wouldn't stop hanging around with Ginny they beat us up. And taunted me with the fact I was a loser for not going back to school."

"Oh Dudley, why didn't you tell me?"

"We didn't want to worry you, as it was just the once and you had so much going on with Harry."

"Oh you silly boy, you are my son, and I love you, I always will. I will also always make time for you if something is wrong, or even if you just want to have a cup of tea while we watch TV."

"But over Christmas…"

"You know that Karen became magical over Christmas?"

"I do, but…"

"What you probably don't know is just how dangerous it was for us to do it."

"I do, but… What do you mean dangerous?"

"Do you remember when we took you on holiday to the beach when you were 8?"

"Yes, it was great."

"Do you remember what the lifeguard told you about swimming in the sea?"

"No?"

Petunia sighed, "Ok. When I give you magic I'm going to have to take you somewhere where there is a lot of magic so that you adapt to it. "However getting there is like trying to swim with the tide, and if I'm not careful I could be swept away with you and disappear never to be seen again."

"I think Ginny and I read about that when we were studying with Karen."

She let's out a sigh of relief as it makes the explanation easier, "That's brilliant, well done on remembering that. Now at Christmas I'd been practicing to try and learn to swim in these currents safely, but I'd only managed to get a little way out. However, I needed to take Karen much deeper than I'd ever gone before.

"When we got that note from the Ministry on Christmas Eve telling me that they were going to take her away and I panicked. I made mistakes that if I'd been thinking more clearly would never have been made and you paid for that with your nightmares. I know you've still been having them. If we could have returned your memories more gently we would have done, but I didn't want Nixie to cause any problems so I left her out of my rooms, which left you as the only person that had any magic she could feed on. I do hope that you can see Nixie when we've got you magic. But I hope that we don't go anywhere near the world that she comes from, as that's too close to where I've almost died twice. What we will do instead is hang around there for a while... Sorry, I side tracked, what was happening there isn't that you were bothering me with your needs, it was that I had so many things going on that I didn't have time to look at any of them properly. For that I'm sorry, and I'm sorry that I didn't notice that it had left you with the impression that I didn't have time for you. I can't promise that similar things won't happen again, but I can't see any reason why it should."

After a moment while Dudley worked out that Petunia wasn't going to add anything, he angrily dashed the few tears away from his eyes. "When can we do it?"

"We could do it tonight if you want."

"Can Ginny come?"

"I'm afraid she can't honey, if you want to wait for another day you can ask her Mum, and if she says yes I can try as she hasn't received her Hogwarts letter yet."

"Could we wait for the weekend so that I can ask?"

"If that's what you want."

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A few days later, a very uncomfortable conversation with Molly, Arthur, Amelia Bones, Karen, and an unspeakable of all things. Petunia was sitting in her meditation room with an audience consisting of the people at the meeting, Healer Gosling, and Healer Andromeda Tonks. She was in the middle of an argument with them as they were arguing that they should be allowed to stay awake to observe, while both She and Karen were trying to impress on them just how stupid an idea that was.

Petunia lets out a frustrated scream. "OK, apart from Karen and myself, does anyone here actually have any expertise in what we're going to be doing?"

Lots of shaking heads.

"And you're not going to accept my word for it being dangerous."

"I don't see why we should, as you don't exactly have any credentials."

"OK, stay there, I'll be right back. Harry's going to kill me for this." Petunia storms off to where the letter from Lily was kept, and brings it back and shoves it at Amelia.

"Madam Bones, is this authentic?"

Amelia waves her wand over the parchment a few times, "I believe it is, but without proper analysis I couldn't say for definite. I'm willing to accept it's authentic for tonight though."

"Fine, I'd like you to read the bit about learning to meditate and why harry has to do it."

Everyone waited a few minutes until she had, "OK?"

"Do you know what Occulumancy is?"

Everyone apart from the Weasleys nodded.

"What does the letter say about Occulumancy?"

"or a book on Occulumancy and don't move on from calming your mind until you've found your magic."

"How many of you lingered long enough to find your magic if you've even practiced Occulumancy in the first place?"

The unspeakable spoke up, "I have, it's standard training."

"Did you then learn to make it more or less active?"

"We learnt how to flare it in order to increase the strength of our spells."

"Which is the exact opposite of what you need to be able to do. Flaring your magic would be like shooting yourself out of a canon in order to land in a shallow pond 10 feet away. If one of the healers can monitor our magic, Karen and I can demonstrate the control you need over your magic before you can even start to try what I'm going to do, and Karen is going to follow along only as far as she feels is safe."

Andromeda turns to Gosling, "You're the Master Healer, so over to you."

"Yes, I can monitor magic, though it's going to be unreliable due to your situation."

"Do your best."

They then both start to meditate and wait for Gosling to say that she's monitoring, the unspeakable adding their own spells.

"Andromeda, could you double check my results please, the standard spells should work."

Andromeda cast her spells a couple of times, then made a couple of notes and cast them again.

"They're reading as having negligible levels of magic, same as I'd expect a muggle to have. How the hell are you doing that?"

"That's what's needed to just stay here, we're going to adjust to where I know I'd need to keep it just to stay in the next world."

"Nought point one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, One… Two… And Karen is at 3.5. How the hell is that possible?"

Petunia touches Karen's shoulder, "You can stop now. Until you can hold that first one and have a conversation you will be pulled into the depths of The Dream with no way of rescue. Once you can have a conversation you can try to release your magic slowly, and even then you'll find it's very difficult as it tries to draw you in and if you're not careful it will pull you deep and your only hope is to slam your magic back to nearly nothing before you pass the point where your body can exist."

The unspeakable managed to look disgruntled in their concealing robes and disappears with a soft pop.

"Well, they didn't seem happy, anyone else or should you all conjure some beds in the other rooms of the house and set an alarm for 2 AM so that you can check we came back OK?"

With that Karen cuddled with Petunia until she had calmed down enough to meditate with a clear head, while the other adults found places to sleep.

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At 10 to 1 Petunia and Karen woke the kids and gave them a quick snack. Once they were fully awake Petunia had them both sit in front of her.

"Ginny, I know you've been practicing your meditation with Dudley.", Ginny gives her a guilty look

"If I had a problem with it I'd have told you off when I caught you both doing it in Dudley's room. Given how long you've been doing it, I imagine that you've been able to touch your magic."

Ginny nods.

"Does it feel settled or is it still changing?"

"It feels mostly settled, though it does jump round a bit."

"Ok, we'll start early, and I'd like you to concentrate on reducing your magic as much as possible, as I don't want you to accidently be pulled in further. I don't think it will be a problem, but I'd rather take as many precautions as I can, do you think you can do that?"

Ginny nods, and then when Petunia is still waiting says, "I can."

"Good, now the next thing is that I need both of you to hold on to me and not let go until we come back here. If we have to leave quickly you could find yourself trapped there. We'd then be lucky to find you again as distance doesn't equate well between worlds. Karen, I'll wait for you to arrive in each world before we move onto the next, if you don't arrive I'll come back and we'll wait for half an hour before returning home."

"Sounds good."

They all settled in to meditate and wait for The Dream to begin. Once it did Ginny involuntarily let out a whispered "Merlin" as she felt the tug on her magic. She opened her eyes to look around as the walls greyed out to reveal a starlit sky, a sliver of moon hanging just over the horizon in front of her, as she looked around in wonder she saw a second moon that was half full above their heads. The moonlight illuminated the ground around them and she saw Lizards with six legs frozen on rocks, their tongues darting out tasting the air. Karen slowly faded in beside them and Petunia looked at her with a silent question. Karen responded with a nod and then the world started to fade into a rainforest, the night lit by a brilliant full moon that filtered through the canopy, Ginny could hear the sounds of animals moving around in the deeper forest. As Karen faded in beside them Petunia glanced at her and nodded, then the world started to fade into an icy tundra, the sun providing scant warmth as it lit up the strange plant life. A small white rabbit with a short horn on its head darted behind a bush at their appearance and unfamiliar birds whirled and spun overhead. Again, they faded out once Karen arrived, this time to a meadow where a few birds flew around with tentacles, grabbing bugs out of the air. This time Karen arrived and started fading again before she stabilised, so Petunia paused for a moment.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, this is harder than it looks."

"OK, let me know when you're ready."

A minute later they moved on while Petunia was describing how this was the last world she remembered clearly on her first time through, as those birds also eat spells. Ginny was so absorbed in her story that she missed the next couple of worlds. She certainly noticed their arrival at the next world for two reasons, the first was that her magic was singing inside her, it seemed to be trying to harmonise with the world around it but kept stuttering. The second was that Karen didn't arrive. She looked around in wonder as insects that looked like they were made from pure magic flitted around and strange birds that bore some similarity to the ones they'd seen before flew around catching the insects.

"Mrs Dursley."

"Call me Aunt or Petunia, you know me to well to be that formal."

"Ok, Aunt Petunia, didn't we see birds like those a few minutes ago?"

"You know, I think we did, I wonder if they managed to migrate accidentally. Ok we're going back one world as Karen isn't here, then we can have a break and a drink. How are you both doing."

Ginny nudges Dudley as the world fades around them and Karen comes into view. He stops doing a goldfish impression and looks around at them.

"Huh?"

"How are you doing Dudleykins?" Petunia asks him, to which he blushes at the nickname.

"This is amazing, I can't wait until I can do this."

"It's going to be a long time yet, this is as far as I can go, and I've been practicing for a month or so."

Karen pulled out some paper cups and a bottle of water and handed around some biscuits while they relaxed. Petunia wouldn't let the children go beyond arms reach, although they were allowed to stand up and stretch their legs. Karen took the opportunity to do so as well. They were almost at their half an hour when they heard the sound of running footsteps from behind a rocky outcrop.

Petunia immediately called the children to hold her hands and started to return to earth. The running immediately turned towards them and they saw a House elf running towards them cradling a bundle in it's arms, it looked back desperately and popped out only to reappear where it left, desperation on it's face.

Bounding up on the rock behind it a creature that looked like a cross between a wolf and a porcupine looked down at the two groups. A faint heat haze appeared over it's back as several of the quills disappeared and reappeared around the elf, who desperately popped again just as the quills passed though it's space. It managed to appear a couple of paces closer to them and Ginny could clearly see that it was carrying a baby.

The world was fading out as she wrenched her hand from Petunias grasp and ran over to the elf. Karen desperately chased after her as the thing disappeared from the rock and appeared a few strides behind the elf. Ginny and Karen both dived forward at the same time, and by some miracle Karen managed to grab Ginny's foot as she slammed her magic closed, the worlds passing in a flicker of light before she found herself lying in the middle of a road holding Ginny's leg.

50. Chapter 50

Struggling to stay awake, Karen called for Ceeley before remembering that she should be asleep. Staggering to her feet, and fighting off the tiredness caused by her suddenly lowered magic levels, she gathers up Ginny, and then finds the house-elf shivering in a foetal position clutching it's baby. Sighing, she looks around and spots an access tunnel between two shops and half drags, half carries Ginny over to it, her sleeping form a dead weight before coming back for the house-elf. Shivering slightly in the cool night air, she lets her magic unfurl just enough to feel the seductive pull of The Dream, but not enough to go anywhere. Once the pull passed she let go of her control with a sigh, and felt as though she'd just had a triple expresso with an equal amount of sugar. As soon as she did the house-elf stopped shivering and leaned into her.

Calling out to Ceeley once more, she was about to give up and find a payphone when a sleepy Ceeley popped in.

"Missy Books calls for Ceeley?"

"Sorry for waking you up, would you be able to get us home please?"

"Ceeley cans be doing that." With that she popped the group out of the tunnel and into the room they were using for meditation. The room itself was bedlam as Molly was bound and silenced in a corner while Gosling was treating a couple of injuries on Petunia and Amelia was trying to calm Arthur down. As soon as the pop of their entrance registered, Arthur looked over and then rushed over and gathered Ginny up in a hug, tears openly streaming down his face. A set of complicated expressions passed over Molly's face as she saw that her daughter was safe.

"She'll sleep well till morning, so can we get one of the healers to look her over before we put her to bed, and then I think we should talk about what she did. Briefly, and you can also tell me why I shouldn't be trying to hurt Molly over there."

"Karen, it's ok, she reacted as any mother would to the idea that someone had hurt one of their children. It was only a couple of love taps, and Vernon gave me worse."

"No it's not ok, I don't care the Vernon gave you worse. I don't care that you came back without her Daughter. You came back, you were exhausted, and the head of the DMLE was right here. Just because something is understandable doesn't make it excusable."

Amelia said from behind Karen, "She's right, it doesn't matter why someone is the way they are, or did something, the law expects everyone to be able to control themselves enough to think things through. If it got to trial, she would probably get some sympathy for distress, but given how bad the courts are it's more likely that the fact that she's a pureblood witch and you're just magical would matter more. Ceeley's just finished making tea, and I elected to come and get you."

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After they'd had a cup of tea and Karen had relayed what happened after Petunia left, which everyone agreed that Ginny had been very lucky that she'd broken free then and not a couple of seconds later. The subject then turns to the shivering House-elf that hasn't let go of Karen.

"Ceeley, would you mind coming here?"

"What can I do for you?" she carefully enunciates.

"We need your help with this house-elf."

"She doesn't feel like other house-elves, her magic is too open for house-elves like me."

"What do you mean?"

She thinks for a moment, "We are like Bright witch and book witch, 'cept we only open our magic when we have to, and only as much as we need to. If we don't magic goes faster than we can get it back. Though Soopy and Ceeley be lucky, we's probably able to not hold magic all the time, but now used to it."

"So you think that she's starving for magic, and it's only being around me that's allowing her to live at the moment."

"Not like starving, more like breathing."

Everyone looks at each other, as the situation for house-elves becomes more apparent.

"Ceeley, would you come here and open up your magic so that if it's not enough you won't die?" Petunia asks.

"Ceeley would rather not, but Ceeley is willing to try for you."

Petunia feels a slight dip in her magic that quickly recovers and a tension that she didn't even know was there seems to lift off of Ceeley's frame, a look of amazement coming over her face. The elf that's holding on to Karen looks up at Ceeley and reaches out her hand towards her, before saying something that none of them understand. She says something else, and Ceeley just looks confused, but reaches out her hand. The other elf grabs Ceeleys hand and suddenly the magic in the room surges as Petunia's magic flares to compensate for the sudden and deep drain she experiences. Amelia lights the tip of her wand in time to see Ceeley and the other elf disappear. A couple of moments later Ceeley reappears with the other elf that looks distraught and is babbling something.

"Oh, lovely. We have a house-elf that needs to live in a magical area, but the only people with what I'd believe to be enough magic to sustain her without dying themselves live in a muggle area." Amelia puts her head in her hands.

"How about we start out with giving her some food and drink, then see how things look in the morning. As both Dudley and Ginny were there, so if we could work out how to get her to use one of those plates we could find out if they've got a high enough density to cope. If they do, and Molly and Arthur are willing to take her under their wing, she could have a home with them while she learns about this world. Ceeley could you get her something to eat, a human portion.

"Right away Mistress."

The elf latches onto Karen again when Ceeley pops off, and she carefully picks her up and seats her next to her on the chair. She still hasn't let go of her baby, but Karen is able to see it's face for the first time.

"Healers, I've just remembered, the bundle that she's carrying is a baby, can you check on it's health?"

They start to cast spells at the baby and the mother immediately shields it and takes an aggressive stance, Karen gently puts her hands on her shoulders and whispers reassuring platitudes. Once she calms down a bit, Karen speaks up "Could you try casting them on me first and see if that calms her down?"

Nodding their assent they proceed to do so. After showing no signs of discomfort, Karen nods and they try again on the baby. The mother shakes but doesn't do anything.

"The baby seems to be fine, if a little malnourished. Which probably means that the mother is malnourished too."

Ceeley pops back with a plate of sandwiches, cheese, dried meats and a small salad and tries to hand it to the elf, who looks at it suspiciously.

Karen takes one of the sandwiches and holds it out to Ceeley, "Would you be able to eat it to show it's safe?"

Ceeley looks at Karen with a scandalous expression on her face, "We know it's safe, but she has never been around people like us before, and by the looks of things she's never seen food like this before."

Ceeley grumbles about not being hungry, but does as asked. Once she's finished the sandwich Karen hands a sandwich to the elf, who takes it with greedy hands and tries to stuff the whole thing in her mouth at once, while keeping a wary and guarded look about her. Karen then puts the plate on her lap and carefully seats the elf next to her, before trying to hand the plate to the elf. She pulls the plate onto her lap, and then proceeds to gorge herself. Once she starts trying to hide the remaining food, Karen gently holds her hand and puts the plate on the coffee table with magic.

"I swear I'll never get used to seeing that, the way she doesn't even notice that she's doing it. Even with Dumbledore you can see that he's straining and trying to make it look casual." Molly says from across the room.

Once Karen has got the elf's attention away from the food and she seems more relaxed if still alert, she points at herself and says "Karen."

She then goes around the room and gives out everyone's name, though she refers to Healer Gosling by her last name as she doesn't know her first name. Finally, she points to the elf, who remains silent. She then points to herself and says "I am Karen", before pointing at Petunia who takes the cue and repeats the phrase, finally returning to the elf, who still remains silent. One last time she goes round starting with Petunia "Their name is Petunia", and ending up with the elf again, who responds with "Aityo"

"Hello Aityo, Ceeley will show you a nice place to sleep." Karen also mimes her actions the way she would to a hard of hearing child.

Ceeley pops away and Karen says to the rest of the room "I think we should all get some more sleep, or any in my case, so that we're not relying on coffee to stay awake tomorrow." While the witches and wizard look a little confused at why you wouldn't just use a pepper up potion, they do get the idea and everyone heads to a bed.

As their going upstairs Petunia comments, "I bet that unspeakable will be kicking themselves when they find out that we brought an elf back." Amelia laughs behind her.

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Harry wakes up in the night as his magic flares, looking around briefly he goes back to sleep. The next couple of days go well as the exam season starts up. Harry is a little concerned about Lavender and Parvati, and by extension Ron, as they seem to be worried about something and getting back really late. It all came to a head around a week before the end of term, they'd finished their exams and the headmaster was called away for an emergency at the Ministry.

Harry woke up at the faint sound of Lavender waking Parvati up, following them downstairs he saw that they'd met up with Ron and arguing with Neville.

"Look Neville, we need to go as Snape is trying to steal the stone."

"What stone?" Harry fades into his male form as he speaks up behind them.

"The Philosophers stone, the headmaster's looking after it for Nicolas Flamel."

"Oh, I thought it was something important. We accidentally found that just after Christmas, and forgot about it till Easter. That's why we had to go home in a hurry."

"I don't believe you" Ron spoke up

"Look, just send someone up to wake Hermione up and ask her."

"Can't you do it?" Parvati whined.

"What's so hard about waking up a girl?" Ron butted in obnoxiously.

"Does that mean that you're volunteering?"

"I would, but I can't go up the stairs." He rebuts.

Harry shakes his head, "Mipsy."

"Observant Master calls?"

"Would you be able to do me a favour and take Ron up to the dorm room so that he can wake Hermione, Lavendar and Parvati will go up first to guarantee his behaviour."

"Mipsy is not allowed to do that."

Harry absently rubs the place his scar used to be, "Would you be able to bring Hermione down and lay her out on the couch over there then?"

"Mipsy can do that." A quick couple of pops later, a sleeping Hermione is lying on the couch.

"Well there's your opportunity. I'm going to sit over here and stay silent." He takes a seat behind the couch so that he can't signal Hermione, and waits.

"Well, go on then." Lavender hisses at Ron.

"What, why can't you do it, she's right there."

"I know what happens so I don't want to. Also you said it's not hard."

"Fine!", he walks over and shakes her roughly.

"Hermione, Waurk, mmmph" He goes flying across the common room and sticks to the wall upside down, duct tape appearing over his mouth as Hermione stirs slightly.

"Hermione, Hermione, we need you to wake up." Lavender croons from behind Neville.

With a yawn she opens her eyes groggily, "Is it morning already?"

Ron's robe falling over his face draws her eye, "What's Ron doing in the… Common room?"

"We need to stop Snape from getting the philosophers stone."

"Oh? Issnot here, we sent it back to the Flamel's at Easter, I'll show you their letter in the morning." With that she stumbled to her feet and went back up to bed.

"Thank Merlin she woke up easily, if harry left before we wake up it can sometimes take two or three of us to wake her up."

"Mipsy, would you be able to get the letter from the top left drawer of her travel trunk please?"

"Mipsy will, but you explain to Observant Mistress why if Mipsy gets caught."

She retrieves the letter which Harry scans over and then hands to the others.

"Can we all go back to bed now?"

The next morning McGonagall stood up at the breakfast table. "Good Morning everyone, if I could have your attention. I would like to hold a moment's silence for Quirrell, as the Head Master returned briefly last night when the alarms we'd placed went off. It appears that he neglected to inform any of the other staff that he was doing an inspection of the damage to that area, and fell victim to the dangers there. As many of you know we borrowed Fluffy from Hagrid to deter students from doing this. Let this be a lesson to you all, we don't tell you to avoid areas in and around the castle for our own enjoyment. Professor Snape has generously agreed to take over the Defence classes for the last week." Snape preened at this.

"As we have rediscovered the charter this year, the heads of houses and I will be going through the points allocations for the year and removing those that were awarded or deducted for unfair or illegal reasons. This is something we will be doing at the end of each year from now on." Snapes mood immediately did a 180 at that news.

"Finally, Rolanda and I have been in talks with the European schools alliance, and have arranged to join the league with Beauxbatons in France, Durmstrang in eastern Europe, O Ateneu in Spain, Scuola Superiore in Italy, and finally Freiberg in Germany. We will need to pick two teams, an A team and a B team. Selection for these teams will only be open to those currently in 4th to 6th year." The cheers from the student's that knew anything about this alliance were deafening, while everyone else looked around mystified. She allowed the noise to continue for a moment before silencing the hall with a cannon blast from her wand.

"The teams will be required to play 10 games over the year evenly split between them, the reason for two teams is that there will be an Away game and a home game going on at the same time. As an incentive, the heads of house and I have agreed that each teacher will be allowed to nominate two students from each year per game to go with the away team to support them, from that list we will all pick 4 students from each year to go. Lastly team member that are picked for the two school teams will not be allowed to participate in the house teams. This is to give other students a chance to shine. Initially we will mandate that there is cross house selection for the first year, but after that it will be a purely merit based membership and the teams will hold trials at the beginning of each year. A selection basket will be on the table here at every meal so you can place the name of the person that you feel will be the best captain in, remember that it doesn't need to be an existing captain, while they will need to have good quidditch skills, their ability to motivate their team is probably more important. There will be an additional charge of 1 Galleon on next years tuition in order to purchase the standard brooms that your teams will be required to use for fair play. Finally for the winning school, each member of the team will be given a medal by the European branch of the ICW as well as 100G to spend on their education. The money comes from the profession clubs all over Europe. The school will also have the prestige of hosting the cup for the year."

"That's all I need to say at the moment, please enjoy your breakfast."

She then stepped down and walked over to the Gryffindor table.

"Miss Granger."

"Yes Professor?"

"I am aware that you have an outstanding detention with Quirrell tonight because he caught you studying material for Charms in his class. I appreciate that you probably finished all of the work for his class early, but you didn't ask if you could move onto Charms. You will be having your detention with Rolanda instead."

AN: For those that are wondering, for house-elves being on this world is like us trying to live at the final camp on Mount Everest. It's possible but it's unpleasant and it will kill you if you try to do too much. Karen, on the other hand, is like the person that has a massive oxygen tank with her and is willing to share it. There are a few places like Hogwarts and Diagon alley that are like the base-camps, still hard to live in, but you can at least do stuff there.

51. Chapter 51

30th June 1976

I don't know why, but something that has been bugging me every year is how the headmaster always manages to scrounge up some extra points for each house, and awards them to specific people. I mean, really, how is making everyone laugh worth 150 points? Doesn't he realise that by picking out people and houses he's just building resentment from the houses that aren't blessed by his grace. I'm sure that favouritism is also one of the talking points of the people that Snape's fallen in with, as it seems to be very rare that those points are granted to anyone in Slythrin.

Over the next week the hour glasses that held the students points fluctuated wildly, before settling out into minor shifts here and there. Harry also noted that the Headmaster seemed to be absent more often again. Professor McGonagall had told the school that he had embarked on a new strand of academic research so he sends his apologies for his absence.

Harry had had his 4th mind healing session yesterday and the healer said that she should try to do more activities that she enjoys in her male form, so that he built a positive relationship with his male body. He wasn't looking forward to the next step that he'd have to do once the healer felt he had enough positive experiences, which will be to do the hard/not nice things in his female body. So here he was trying to participate in the chatting circle without turning back into a girl, and he was finding it so much harder than he thought it would be. Finally she gave up and just joined in. Eventually the subject came round to the new quidditch teams, and as they were discussing things she had a thought about the meditation they did in the evenings.

"Fay?" She calls across the circle loudly.

"Yes Harry?"

"You know the meditation we do in the common room with Neville? Do you think that would count as a club?"

"You know, I don't know."

"Professor McGonagall is over there talking to Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and a teacher I don't remember the name of."

"That's Professor Babbling, the Ancient Runes teacher, she's…" Hermione speaks up and trails off after someone puts a hand on her arm as she looks to be ready to give a brief history of the teacher.

"Sorry…" She says quietly, to a chorus of "It's ok from around the circle, we all know it's just you." She give a small smile as Hannah goes over to ask Professor McGonagall. Everyone's a little nervous when all of the teachers come back with her and take a seat in the circle.

"Relax, student's we just thought Hannah's question was an interesting one so we came over to find out more. Yes you could certainly set up a meditation club, though you'd need to choose a student rep for it." Everyone pointed at Harry, who blushed almost the same colour as her hair.

"Now, what's interesting is that this is already an informal club. After all, what else is a club but a group of people coming together for a common interest." A lot of the girls looked around at each other with wide eyes as they hadn't even considered that.

"What I'd like to know is if any of you have any other ideas for clubs that could be done."

Harry shrinks down into her chair and shifts to her male form as she expects to be shouted down for this suggestion, "While I'm not sure about clubs, why not have some non-standard sports like chess, and then have a tournament at the end of the year to find out who's best. Then give the top few people points."

"I think that's a good idea Harry, you could also introduce other things we have in the muggle world as magical sports. When Mum and Dad were looking at muggle schools for me, Kent college had a debating, snooker, chess, dance, archery, yoga, and cooking clubs. I bet snooker could be played without cues to make it something that takes magical skill, and I bet the same could be done with archery."

Flitwick starts to babble excitedly "I think I know a few charms that could be used for archery, the lower years could use a simple paint spot charm, while the upper years could use transfiguration and banishing to make arrows, with the top students using conjuration instead. Then we could have a timed competition where the person to score the most points in a minute wins, accuracy at different distances."

"Flitwick, Flitwick, Flitwick! Write it down and we'll discuss it over the holidays."

Megan from Hufflepuff timidly suggests "You know the twins do loads of pranks, maybe we could have a club for creative use of magic, and they could put on a show or something so that we don't come down to breakfast smelling of pee occasionally, or have mustard coloured hair."

Millicent from Slytherin added, "How about a personal grooming club where we share fashion tips and spells?"

"That sounds like a great idea." Lavender and Parvati say in unison, causing the rest of the circle to laugh, the conversation then becomes much more free with discussions splitting of on what could be a club, and how some of the clubs could work. This drew in some of the older years, which drew in more students and suddenly it became a school wide informal meeting with the teachers milling around listening in and making suggestions on spells or options that some students may not know about.

Eventually curfew arrived and McGonagall let off a whistle with her wand. "This has been one of the best evenings I've ever experienced in this school outside a formal event. You all came together to come up with ideas for making your experience here better in the future. I'm going to overlook the few heated disagreements that came up because that's as far as they went. Instead I'm going to give everyone that was involved 5 points. There were too many ideas for everything to become a club, otherwise they'd only have 1 member each, however over the summer holidays we'll have a meeting and decide between us which clubs we believe we can support. Now for the first and second years, it's time for you all to go to bed, so off with you and sleep well."

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The next morning the whole school came down to see that the hour glasses were now empty. A susurration of speculation went around the tables as they saw the headmaster slumped in his throne with a sour expression on his face. Professor McGonagall stood up once it became clear that Albus wasn't going to. "Good morning students today is the last day of term with the leaving feast tonight. Traditionally, today was a free day, given to you so that you could ensure that all of your belongings were packed ready for the morning, and exchange contact details with your new friends. This is a tradition that I am happy to say we are reinstating as of this year. As you can also see behind me, the house points are now closed, that doesn't mean that you won't be punished for an infraction. Instead of point losses today you will be confined to your dorm with a simple meal provided by the kitchen." A sense of understanding went around the older students as they suddenly realised just why the headmaster was looking so glum, then suddenly someone at the Ravenclaw table stood up and started clapping, followed by someone from the Slytherin table and then soon all of the 4th years and above were standing with a few 3rd years as well, the rest looked a little confused at what was applause worthy.

Once the applause died down, McGonagall fanned her face with her hand and continued, "Well, I wasn't expecting that. As things seem to be going so well, I have two more pieces of news. For my Gryffindors, I am sorry to say that this last week has brought home just how over stretched I've been. You have my most sincere apologies for not being there for you in the past and allowing my duties as the Transfiguration teacher and Deputy Headmistress. As such I am passing my head of house title over to Professor Babbling, I will still be around next year as the assistant head of house. Professor Sinistra has agreed to assist House Ravenclaw, Professor Vector has agreed to assist Slytherin, and Professor Salman has agreed to assist Professor Sprout." Professor Snapes already sour expression falls even further with that announcement.

"Madam Hooch has also agreed to manage the scheduling and allocation of clubs in the coming year along with her duties coaching the quidditch teams. Finally, the second announcement is for the formation of a student council next year, we will be taking 1 third and 1 sixth year student from each house, and they will form the council. On the first Sunday of each month they will be taking our places at this table, and it will be time for you to have your say about how things are going in the school. What we will be trying to do is recreate what happened last night, where most of the school were involved in discussing clubs and activities that could be done.

"With that…" She paused as Madam Hooch walked over and whispered in her ear.

"Madam Hooch has just reminded me. Any clubs that form next year that have an element of excellence to them will also have an end of year tournament, the winning team or individual will earn 40 points for their house or houses, the next placed 30, then 20, and finally 10, disqualification will cost your house 20 points. Go on, I will see you all later, enjoy your day and remember to pack. That means you Weasleys." The whole of the Gryffindor house laughed at that.

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The rest of the day passed in a blur as Harry was overwhelmed with the number of people he'd actually spoken to and knew at least a little. He was even surprised to find that he even knew a couple of the boys in Slytherin, as he thought he'd only met the girls. Granted most of the boys outside Gryffindor seemed to be somewhere between they don't care about him one way or another, and they outright don't like him. It got to the point where all he wanted was some space where people weren't wanting to talk. He didn't even remember most of the feast it bothered him so much. The only part that stood out due to the eye watering colour of the robes the headmaster was wearing was the declaration of points.

Albus stood up in his robes that he'd charmed in lovely fluorescent colours that he'd seen muggles wearing in London one night earlier in the 80's. The green polka dots moving around and bouncing off of blue rectangles and purple triangles. The orange background showing off the patterns they made nicely.

He cleared his throat and started his speech. "Normally this would be the time of the feast when I'd announce any additional points that people had earned for specific deeds. However, as you can see the points have already been calculated and finalised. So in fourth place we have Gryffindor with 470 points."

The Gryffindor hourglass filled with rubies at this, and as he continued the other hour glasses filled in order, "In third place we have Slytherin with 472 points. In second place is Hufflepuff with 480 points, and for the first time in 11 years in first place we have Ravenclaw with 485 points."

There was a moment of stunned disbelief as the Ravenclaws couldn't believe what they'd just heard, and then the first years started cheering quickly followed by the rest of the house.

With that the hangings changed to match the Ravenclaw house and food appeared on the table. Once the headmaster sat down, Harry noted that the Heads of houses didn't seem to be that comfortable sitting next to the Headmaster. Snapes customary Sneer deepened showing his utter distain for the headmasters clothes evident on his face as he found himself trapped sitting next to the headmaster when McGonagall got up to take the place that the defence professor would have sat and engaged Sprout and Vector in conversation. Trelawney seeing the free space moved over to complement the headmaster on his clothing choice, and started prattling on about the things she could see in the patterns the shapes formed. Flitwick engaged Babbling in conversation, despite the fact that she wouldn't look at the headmaster, and thus at him.

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Petunia sighed as she waited on the platform with Karen, the Weasleys, and the Grangers as well as the two children and four house elves. The last few weeks had been manic, and now she had a new business to run that she was calling Muggle Tours. This came about because she'd needed to take Molly and Arthur to the local DoE branch in Guildford with Ginny and Dudley to prove that they'd been teaching both of them appropriately. The crash-course on how to use a biro for Molly and Arthur had been a bust, so she shelled out for a couple of cheap fountain pens. Then she'd needed to outfit them as they didn't have anything muggle appropriate, finally she had to coach them with a trip to Little Whinging high street so that they got their Gawking out of the way somewhere not so busy.

On the day of the test the children were fine, Ginny having being young enough to adapt to the muggle world quickly. It was the adults that were the problem, she'd had to threaten to take Molly's wand from her if she even thought about drawing it. They'd eventually managed to get to the office without looking like they were foreigners, and the test went surprisingly well. Dudley scored well but not too well, and the examiner congratulated both of them for making the right decision to hold him back a year. Ginny didn't do so well, and they were given some recommendations for things they could do to shore up her weaknesses.

No it was when they got outside and Arthur decided it was time to go home. He drew his wand and if she hadn't snatched it out of his hand he'd have teleported away with Ginny in front of 20-30 muggles and a security camera. As it was he ended up just looking silly as he turned on the spot.

The only bright spot was that Aityo was now linked to Ginny so she was spending most of her time with Molly at the burrow, and wasn't that a surprise, both of them had a magical purity in the 80's with Ginny's slightly higher than Dudley's. Ginny's magic had matured early.

Ginny's excited squealing brought her out of her thoughts.

"I can see the train, I can see the train, can we go and get Pizza soon?"

That's what she'd forgotten, they'd promised the children that they could go to get Pizza with Luna if they did well. Speak of the Devil, her favourite and most hated project was coming towards them, at least he looked like a hippy that forgot the 70's ended over a decade ago, what with his tie-dye trousers and shirt, along with the red John Lennon glasses. Luna was a little better in a summer dress she found in one of the charity shops on the high-street, and dyed herself, and some cheap semi-precious gem jewellery, though she was still wearing the radish earrings.

The train pulled into the station and students started to pour off the train, lugging their trunks with them. Harry and Hermione were almost unrecognisable from the children that they saw off to school back in September, chatting easily with a group of girls and helping them off the train with their luggage.

As the children all split up to go to their respective parents, Ginny became more and more nervous, and was almost a stuttering mess by the time Hermione got to them. She quickly ran up to Harry and hugged her before hiding behind her and stammering "Hi Hermione, good year?"

The moment was saved by Luna crying out, "Daddy, Daddy, she's got a Nargle too."

Xeno looked at Chirpy sitting on Hermione's shoulder, "I can see that honey, though it's rude to point."

"Oh, sorry." Luna looked momentarily repentant.

Hermione took him off her shoulder and handed him to Luna, who looked as though someone had just made her year.

"Xeno, how is it that you can see that?" Arthur asked, having been around Nixie too much to disbelieve Luna.

"Oh, I enchanted these glasses the same way I do the spectra specs we give to new subscribers. Do you want to try them?" He takes off his glasses and passes them over.

"Wait, they actually work?" He puts them on and can suddenly see Chirpy as a bright red creature sitting in Luna's hands.

"Well yes, we wouldn't want to sell dodgy stuff. Everything that we print has at least some level of evidence for it's existence."

Ron, the Twins and Percy all turned up around that point and Arthur heard Ron say to Fred or George, "'Ere, I thought Ginny had a thing for Harry, how comes she's hiding behind her from Hermione?"

Petunia let everyone catch up for a bit, and hugged Harry when she came over to see her. Eventually though she decided it was late enough and pulled out a handful of rubber wristbands with a runic design on them.

"OK, everyone that has a wand needs to take one of these. Place your wand on the circle here and channel some magic into it, this will activate the runes and store your wand in an expanded space. To get your wand out again you can either wait a couple of hour or snap the bracelet. We are going to get Pizza for dinner before we all go home, so if you don't you're going home and will need to fend for yourselves. Yes Percy, that means that you'll have to cook your own food, from scratch."

"Mum, where did you get these from?" Harry asked.

"Oh, Xeno drew up the runes for me while he was explaining a couple of ways I could do tours for witches and wizards without needing to deprive them of their wands. We did a couple of tests, and found out that carved runes using nothing more than a needle could work, but they wouldn't hold magic for long, so it's more like a short term one use charm. So I use the business pages at the library and found a place that makes bands for concert entry and amusement parks. 500 quid later and a few tests and we have our custom bands that have Muggle Tours printed on them along with the moulded runes. I've got a dozen boxes at home with 1,000 in each, so if there's a bad one I just hand out another one. Give it a go."

Harry did, and to everyone's amazement his wand was sucked into the circle.

"now just snap it and you'll have your wand back." He did, and he did.

"Ceeley, could you make the children's look like they've just got back from school."

"Oh, make the twins look like they came back from Smeltings." Ginny interjects before she does, Dudley snickers behind his hand.

"Gred?"

"Yes Forge?"

"Two questions. Why do I think that we're about to be the victims of a prank?"

"Probably because we are."

"And why didn't we take Ancient Runes?"

"We wanted to have more time to devote to our pranks."

"Right, just wanted to be sure."

With that they all went out and celebrated the end of the year with Pizza Hut.

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Fin.

The next book is up and can be found here s/13753505/1/Harry-Potter-Secrets-of-the-Dream or on AO3