AU Big Bang - The World Listens
Title: The World Listens
Fandom: Harry Potter
Written for: au_bigbang
Summary: Harry Potter can hear the dead. He's one of several children born every generation that has the ability to converse with those beyond the veil, but there's only one problem: He can only hear them. He can't speak with them, like the others with this ability. Insert Hermione Granger, a level-headed if not a bit out-spoken young witch who knows more about him than he could have ever figured. She wants to start a business that isn't so much a business as it is a disguise for what will be a group of witches and wizards who want to fight back against the Tom Riddle, the Minister of Magic, and his private army of Death Eaters.
Hermione introduces him to Luna, a girl who claims to have made an invention that can fix Harry's one-sided communication problem. But when he realises that it is his parents that are the reason he can't speak to the dead or do magic, he's not entirely too sure he wants to be cured. And with certain truths regarding his parents' death and the people involved, Harry doesn't know who he can trust any more.
Other: Uh, I only managed to write half the story. I ran out of steam and couldn't push myself to get through the middle so I stopped here. I also need a lot more working with the plot before i can actually finish it so. And the formatting is all wrong but I give up.
Also, as a special bonus for posting the first part of this story, I've unlocked the mix that I made when first planning the AU back in January when it was designed as a gift for Eowyn! Check it out over this way
Mix: " Tell the Audient Void" by tortugax
Part I || Part II || Part III
“Shut up,” Harry muttered, scrubbing at his face with his hands. “Please just shut up.”
But the voices would not stop. He knew that they couldn't hear him. They only knew that he could hear them. That didn't mean he couldn't try.
“I can't help you,” he said, hands falling down into his lap. “Go find someone else who can.
They didn't leave, and he half wondered if they didn't want saving, that if they just wanted someone who could hear them.
“How miserable and lonely you must be if you come to me.” Harry already knew how miserable and lonely he was because they were the only ones that he could talk to.
Harry Potter, he thought with a wry smile. The boy who could hear the dead.
*
The day after his eleventh birthday, his Aunt Petunia dragged him to the Ministry's offices, quite unlike the way she had gently persuaded Dudley into the car and made an entire trip out of the visit downtown when he turned eleven.
“Listen you,” she hissed into his ear. Her claw like fingers dug into his shoulder through the thin t-shirt. “Don't tell anyone at the Ministry that you can hear voices. We already know that you're crazy, and the last thing we need is the government telling us what to do with you.”
Harry knew better than to say he could hear voices. He didn't need Aunt Petunia hissing and buzzing beside him like an angry bee.
“Do you understand me?” she asked when he hadn't given her a response.
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he replied dully.
In front of them, an old woman kept an equally claw-like grasp on the shoulder of a boy with a round face. “Now Neville, remember what I told you?”
Harry watched curiously as the boy nodded.
“Have you been practicing?” the old woman asked, and the boy nodded again. He mumbled something that might have been yes, Gram, but Aunt Petunia was talking again and drowned out the other sounds in the room.
“You better be grateful for this, boy,” she said, drumming her fingers in an agitated fashion.
Harry winced as her thumb dug into his shoulder blade. He wasn't too sure if she was expecting a response, but she carried right on anyways without giving him a chance.
“That stupid sister of mine. If she had just kept quiet and done what she had been told, it would have been so much easier on all of us.” Aunt Petunia gave an anguished sigh, the one that she normally gave when thinking of an injury done to her. “Our parents had already forgotten her. But she wouldn't let me forget. Always sending me letters. Did you know she even invited me to her wedding? The nerve!”
Harry knew, but only because he had heard the story at least once a month for as long as he could remember. The nerve! he quoted along in his head. To think that I would just happily waltz to her wedding. I know how those magic types view normal people like me. Good sensible normal people, being seen like we're pitiful. Are you listening to me, boy?
She shook him, and the small smile that had been forming on his face slipped off with the motion. His glasses slipped as well. “Are you?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said, and looked straight ahead. Harry nudged his glasses back into place.
The round-faced boy in front of them in line was watching him with the same curiously Harry had shown him. When he caught Harry's glance, he offered a smile as if to say Pain, isn't it?
It is, Harry replied with a subtle nod and the boy's smile widened into a bashful grin.
“Neville, eyes forward. Stop staring, it's rude.” The old woman pinched the boy's ear and turned him around again to face the front.
The line progressed slowly, as the pairs before him disappeared one by one into the testing rooms. Harry was actually starting to get nervous. He knew that he couldn't do magic - he had tried before, and the attempts resulted in Dudley laughing at him and his Aunt Petunia clicking her tongue in an I told you so manner.
But she had always stressed how both of his parents knew magic. How Lily, her sister, was taken because she was from a family of non-magic users, and how James, her brother-in-law, liked to show off all the time. Then why shouldn't he be able to do magic? What if he got into the testing room and suddenly he could cast a spell that had failed him so many times? Would he be sent to school because he did have parents that could use magic? Or would he be sent to an orphanage where all the other magic-using kids went when their parents were normal?
He was jerked out of his thoughts as the boy before him (July 30th, Longbottom, Neville) stepped away from the line into the testing room on the far left.
“Stop fretting,” Aunt Petunia hissed down to him. “You can't do magic. Just accept it.”
Oddly enough, the words had a comforting effect on him. He was certain she didn't mean for them to be helpful, but he repeated them over and over in his head. You can't do magic. Just accept it. All he could do was hear voices, and that wasn't something he wanted to tell people.
Harry looked up when a man coughed to get his attention. The test proctor was a large man, dark skin and dark eyes seeming to reach out to swallow the dim light of the room around them. He had one gold earring, and the tag on his nicely pressed jacket read Shacklebolt.
“And you are?” he asked, voice rumbling deep in his chest.
“July 31st, Potter, Harry,” the boy squeaked. He was trembling so much that he thought his glasses would fall off his nose.
The man looked down at a list on his clipboard, then made a mark with his fountain pen when he found the name. “Very good. Come along then.”
Harry obediently followed after the man in silence. Even Aunt Petunia, who was normally muttering something under her breath in displeasure, was oddly silent.
The testing room was divided into two. The first part was a small sitting room, a few uncomfortable looking chairs and one table with a pitcher of water and paper cups making the only decorations. One of the chairs was already filled by a rather unpleasant looking woman dressed in pink and a frog-like face. She didn't glance up from her notepad as they entered.
The long wall across the room had a window that looked into the actual testing room: White with fluorescent light, and two metal folding chairs separated by a card table. There was another folding chair in one of the corners.
“Now, Harry,” the man said. “Would you like your mother to wait out here or have her come into the room with you?”
“She's my aunt,” Harry said quickly, and the woman in pink in the corner of the room made a small sound that was rather like a gurgle. “Would it be okay if she waited out here?”
Aunt Petunia made a small noise of her own, but it was cut off when the man opened the door to the testing room and said, “Come along this way, Harry.”
Separating himself from Aunt Petunia's pincer grip on his shoulder, Harry stepped through into the other room. He glanced back as the man closed the door. What had been a window on the other side of the door was now a mirror reflecting his pale, nervous face hiding under his mess of dark hair. He tried to comb down his hair with his fingers, but it only stuck right back up again in protest.
The man put a hand on his shoulder and led him over to one of the folding chairs. “My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt,” he said as he sat down in the chair across from Harry. “I'm one of the proctors for the Ministry's examination. The woman you saw sitting outside is the Headmaster for the academy that children with magic are sent to.”
Shacklebolt shifted in his chair and began to make a few notes on the paper on his clipboard. “You said that woman out there was your aunt. Can you tell me about how you came to live with her?” He chuckled at Harry's surprised expression. “Just to squander the time until we are given the go-ahead to continue with the test.” He gave a comforting smile. “What were your parents' names?”
“James and Lily Potter, sir,” Harry said nervously, licking his lips and trying to keep his body still. “Aunt Petunia was my mother's sister.”
The man hesitated, his eyes going wide for a moment as he tapped the nib of his fountain pen against the paper. “You're James and Lily's boy?” He leaned in a fraction, and his deep voice made his words hard to distinguish.
Harry felt his heart constrict and he sat up a bit straighter. “You knew them?”
Shacklebolt looked uncomfortable, though his attention was pulled away as there was a tap at the mirror. “Alright, Harry, time to begin the test. It's fairly simple, so don't worry.” He pointed up at the lights. “Just try to turn these off.”
“How do I do that, sir?”
“Just imagine them turning off and say nox,” he said, making a note on his paper.
Harry looked up at the lights, squinting against their brightness. With every ounce of will that he could muster, he imagined the lights off and said, “Nox.”
The lights flickered slightly, but remained humming over head.
“Nox,” he tried again, and this time they didn't even flicker.
“That's quite all right, Harry,” Shacklebolt said, bringing the boy's attention back to him. “Try to summon this pen.” He set his fountain pen on to the table between them. “Visualise it in your hand and say accio pen.”
Harry did as he was told, and the pen remained stubbornly on the other side of the table.
Shacklebolt didn't say anything as he picked up the pen and made another note on the paper. Harry could hear Aunt Petunia's voice in his head, and he repeated the mantra along with her:
You can't do magic. Just accept it.
“Thank you for taking the time to come out this way,” the man said as he replaced the pen into the breast pocket of his jacket. He made a motion towards the mirror, and the door opened up and a thin-lipped Aunt Petunia hurried into the room and regained her grip on Harry's shoulder.
“Pardon for the trouble,” she said, her voice high and strained. “Come along, Harry.” She was guiding him towards the door in the back of the room when Shacklebolt held out a hand to stop them.
“Just a moment,” he said. “That scar on your forehead, Harry. How did you get it?”
Unconsciously, Harry lifted a hand to flatten his bangs down over the lightning bolt on his brow as Aunt Petunia's grip tightened.
“He's a clumsy child,” she said, pulling Harry back against her. “He tripped and fell. Hit the edge of the back stairs.”
Mute, the boy nodded in agreement.
Shacklebolt didn't look convinced. “Can you speak with the dead, Harry?”
“No, sir,” Harry replied obediently. For the first time since he entered the Ministry, the voices roared in disapproval and he winced at their noise. Of course he couldn't. They never listened when he said anything to them. Besides, what did that have to do with his scar?
Aunt Petunia gave a high-pitched laugh and loosened her grip slightly. “Good day, Mister Shacklebolt,” she said, and ushered Harry out the door. They were silent all the way back through the Ministry and into the parking lot. Once they were shut safely away in her car, she gave another laugh. “There. Done with that. I wonder what I should make for dinner tonight...”
Harry rested his forehead against the window. He remembered that when Dudley came back from the test (“Passing,” Uncle Vernon had termed it with a proud grin. Failing, in his book, was having magic). Aunt Petunia had fixed up an elaborate meal of all of Dudley's favorite foods. He didn't even bother voice an opinion as his aunt muttered to herself and pulled a crumpled shopping list out of her purse.
Outside, the world was grey. It looked like it was going to rain.
*
As a gift to himself on his seventeenth birthday, Harry moved out of Number 4, Privet Drive. As their gift to him, the Dursleys let him go without question. Dudley even separated himself from the couch where he sat all day staring at the telly long enough to give Harry an awkward handshake.
From the kitchen, Aunt Petunia made a sound that could have been a choked and stifled sob if she had been that kind of person, but it was likely just a sound of hmph, I am DONE with you! I've upheld my obligation to my sister long enough.
He left the house with naught but two suitcases and a light heart, and spent the night in a rather run-down hostel because he hadn't had a chance to go to the bank. The Dursleys weren't about to spend any more of their hard earned money on him. Not when his parents had left him a fortune.
Over the next few days, Harry set to work to find a place where he could live in relative comfort without squandering his money. His education was nothing to brag about, and he had no job to occupy his time with. The days passed slowly but he was feeling far better than he had in a long time.
At first, he frequented the library. He had developed a taste for reading when he was still living with the Dursleys, but he quickly found out that he couldn't handle the silence. The voices were much louder when there was nothing to block them out.
So then he checked out the books and went to sit in places like a bench on a busy street corner or in a shopping mall. It was a relief, sometimes, to hear the noise of the living instead of the clamor of the dead.
Other times, he would sit in his flat - his depressingly empty flat that reflected just what he had to show for life. He would sit there at the little round table in the kitchen that had two chairs even though he had no one else over, and nursed a mug of tea between his hands and listened to the silence. Of course, the silence was never really all that quiet.
And, sometimes, that was a relief as well.
*
The dead never had anything interesting to say. Harry learned this when he was younger, though that never stopped him from paying attention to them from time to time just to see if anything changed (nothing ever did; the dead were a surprisingly constant factor). One would squabble about an unjust death in a duel, another would give a keening whine as they pined for a loved one. More often, they voiced a constant repetition of mundane tasks if the person had died normally - whatever normally was.
Harry began to figure that they only reason they were so noisy was that they knew he could hear them, and just wanted someone to listen. He couldn't blame them. Sometimes, he would respond to their persistent nagging, though they carried on with their one sided conversations without even acknowledging the fact that he attempted anything at all.
It hadn't been until after he moved out of Number 4, Privet Drive, that he learned that he was not the only one that could hear the dead. For some reason, this surprised him more than it should have (considering that man Shacklebolt's question all those years ago). One of the books that he checked out from the library had been a normal person's guide to trying to converse with those beyond the veil. That is to say, a guide for people who did not have magic to try and speak to loved ones that had passed on. It was written by a fairly popular and charismatic wizard with an annoyingly perfect smile. When he had looked up the book online, many witches and wizards saw the book as a very good prank. At least, those were the few opinions that weren't commenting on the author of the book himself and how annoyingly perfect in general he seemed to be.
All of those with magic knew that speaking to the dead was impossible for normal people.
Even in the magic-using world, there were few that could actually communicate with the dead. He was one of them.
He learned that when a baby was born with a lightning-shaped birthmark, it meant that they had the ability communicate with those who had passed on. Centuries ago, back when magic was still wild and there was no Ministry to govern them, people with the lightning mark were respected and thought of in high regard.
As the Ministry began to form and gain control, they wanted complete mastery over every aspect. Including the voices of the dead. They created the Dementors, fearsome creatures that would administer a deathly 'kiss' to any individual the Ministry selected. The spirits of the Kissed became loyal dogs to the Ministry. They were used as couriers and spies.
In order to ensure that there would be no attempt to rival their monopoly of the dead, the Ministry decided the next step would be to kill those who had the lightning bolt - those who could speak to and hear the voices of spirits.
For awhile, Harry was curious if he was indeed one of these individuals. Sure, he had the scar of a lightning bolt on his forehead, but it was just that: A scar. Every so often, he would catch himself running the tips of his fingers over the raised surface. It wasn't a birthmark, or something he had been born with. It was something he had been given.
So was that why he could only hear the dead? In return for giving up his magic he had been given the ability to hear voices of things and people dead and gone.
It didn't seem like a very fair trade, all things considered.
*
After living on his own for three years, he was beginning to think that he was going to go mad. He was surrounded by normal people that went on with their normal lives and with concerns that seemed so trivial to him. What were their problems compared to his? He belonged in the world of magic, but he was shunned from it because he himself did not have the skills. He could hear the dead, but couldn't tell them to go away.
He was going to go crazy.
He met Hermione Granger a few days after he turned twenty-one. She was the one that he had been waiting for, even though he didn't know it then. She was the one that turned his life back around.
*
She appeared before him as if by magic, and he would have been convinced as such if her face had not been flushed and chest heaving from having run, and had he not heard her footsteps pounding out across the open avenue before reaching him. So Harry knew that she had ran to get to where he sat on the bench, but she appeared so suddenly that it really did take him by surprise.
“Are you Harry Potter?” she asked, breathless.
“Are you coming on to me?”
She gave him a look that let him clearly know that she was not coming on to him (nor interested in doing so) in any shape or form and he felt very foolish for having asked. Still, she sat down next to him on the bench and repeated her question. “Are you Harry Potter?” She sat on the side where there was hardly any room to begin with, and so he wriggled out of the way so they weren't touching.
Harry shifted uncomfortably at the questions, smoothing his hair over his scar and fidgeting with his glasses before saying, “Yeah.”
With a victorious grin, she stuck out her hand in to the space between them. “I am Hermione Granger. I wish to make you an offer.”
Confused as to how this might have been different from coming on to him, Harry regarded her hand with an air of caution. “What kind of offer?”
“Those voices. You can hear the dead.” She said this so matter of factly that at first he accepted it as if she had been talking about the weather.
But then the implications of her words sunk in and he stiffened. “What makes you say that?”
“Your scar,” she said, and frowned the way a mother would as he started to fuss again with his hair. “Knock that off, would you? You're just making yourself look terribly unkempt when you muss it about like that.” Hermione sighed and shook her head. “I have ways of knowing these things. It's not that hard if you know where to look.”
“Alright, fine, but why single me out? Surely there've got to be... plenty of other people out there. Ones that could actually speak back to those obnoxious voices in their heads, unlike me. I've only got half the glory,” Harry snapped back. Now that she was calling out his ability, he felt defensive about it.
She shook her head and scooted a bit closer, an eager look on her face. “You don't need to speak to them for this idea to work. In fact, it's better that you can't.”
Harry hesitated, then scooted away to maintain the space between them. “Is this normally how you start conversations with strangers?”
She rolled her eyes and said, “We're not strangers any more. You're Harry Potter and I'm Hermione Granger. If you shake my hand then we would have officially met.”
“If I shake your hand I'm not agreeing to any nefarious plan, right?”
“Of course not,” Hermione said, scandalized. “I want to work with you. I can't do that successfully if I force you into service.”
Harry straightened his shoulders and took her offered hand. “Then I apologize for before. It is very nice to meet you, Miss Hermione Granger.”
With yet another look of victory on her face, she returned the handshake with enthusiasm. “Now, would you like to hear my offer?”
“I suppose I must,” Harry said, but he found that he was actually quite interested. “So why does it not matter if I can't speak to the dead?”
Hermione folded her hands in her lap, the energy from before drawn back in as she held herself in a professional manner. “I've heard rumors of a machine that has the ability to allow the user to speak to the dead.”
Harry swallowed, his throat going dry. “Then what do you need me for?”
“Well, it hasn't actually been tested,” she confessed. “There aren't many left that can speak and hear the dead naturally. This machine was made with the intention of such an ability, but no one knows if it works or not.”
Naturally. The word made him feel uneasy. He leaned back against the bench, smoothing his thumbs over the cuffs of his jacket. “Why are you so eager to invest in this?”
Hermione gave a small clever smile. “It's just that to me: An investment. It's a chance to go against the Ministry. If word got out to the Ministry that a project like this is going on - that you are alive, then that would really put them in a tight spot.”
“It'll put me in a fairly tight spot as well.” Still, Harry tilted his head to the side, acknowledging her idea but not quite agreeing to it just then. “That's a fairly dangerous proposition, Miss Granger. If they can confirm my ability to hear the dead - which I have no idea how you learned about, as I've not told any one except for my aunt and she would sooner die than let anything strange taint her family - then there is the probability that I could be killed.”
“Indeed, Mister Potter, I am aware that what I am asking you is high in danger and not exactly guaranteed to succeed. As for how I know of your ability, have you heard of a group called the Phoenix Order?”
He shook his head. “If you know about that I can hear the dead, then surely you know that I can't use magic. And I don't really fit in with the normal people. I only recently learned that this mark means I can communicate with the dead.” He pointed angrily at his forehead.
Hermione held up her hands to try and calm him down. “I understand, Mister Potter. I also realise that what I am telling you now is a lot to get your head around, and not a lot of details to back it up.” She rose to her feet and pulled out a pen and a crumpled receipt. “Here's my phone number. Call me if you want to hear more.”
“I don't have a phone,” Harry said as he automatically reached for the offered paper.
She gave him a disapproving frown but pressed the paper into his hand anyways. “Well, then use a payphone for all I care.” Hermione tossed a few strands of her hair over her shoulder. “Just think about it, alright?”
He paused, then nodded, pocketing the number. “I will.”
She smiled, the expression looking as if she was honestly delighted that he accepted. Then she turned around and walked away.
*
“Miss Ganger?”
“This is she.”
“This is Harry. Potter. We met the other day?”
“Yes, of course I remember you. So?”
“So what?”
“Have you thought about it? Or else why would you be calling me?”
“Oh, yes, right. I did.”
“And?”
“Do you have time to meet up? I'd like to discuss the offer more before I accept.”
“An excellent choice, Mister Potter. Is tomorrow at three all right with you?”
“That's fine. Oh, and, I just bought a mobile. You can reach me at this number.”
“Wonderful. Then I'll send you a text with details for the meeting.”
“Great. See you tomorrow.”
Fandom: Harry Potter
Written for: au_bigbang
Summary: Harry Potter can hear the dead. He's one of several children born every generation that has the ability to converse with those beyond the veil, but there's only one problem: He can only hear them. He can't speak with them, like the others with this ability. Insert Hermione Granger, a level-headed if not a bit out-spoken young witch who knows more about him than he could have ever figured. She wants to start a business that isn't so much a business as it is a disguise for what will be a group of witches and wizards who want to fight back against the Tom Riddle, the Minister of Magic, and his private army of Death Eaters.
Hermione introduces him to Luna, a girl who claims to have made an invention that can fix Harry's one-sided communication problem. But when he realises that it is his parents that are the reason he can't speak to the dead or do magic, he's not entirely too sure he wants to be cured. And with certain truths regarding his parents' death and the people involved, Harry doesn't know who he can trust any more.
Other: Uh, I only managed to write half the story. I ran out of steam and couldn't push myself to get through the middle so I stopped here. I also need a lot more working with the plot before i can actually finish it so. And the formatting is all wrong but I give up.
Also, as a special bonus for posting the first part of this story, I've unlocked the mix that I made when first planning the AU back in January when it was designed as a gift for Eowyn! Check it out over this way
Mix: " Tell the Audient Void" by tortugax
Part I || Part II || Part III
“Shut up,” Harry muttered, scrubbing at his face with his hands. “Please just shut up.”
But the voices would not stop. He knew that they couldn't hear him. They only knew that he could hear them. That didn't mean he couldn't try.
“I can't help you,” he said, hands falling down into his lap. “Go find someone else who can.
They didn't leave, and he half wondered if they didn't want saving, that if they just wanted someone who could hear them.
“How miserable and lonely you must be if you come to me.” Harry already knew how miserable and lonely he was because they were the only ones that he could talk to.
Harry Potter, he thought with a wry smile. The boy who could hear the dead.
*
The day after his eleventh birthday, his Aunt Petunia dragged him to the Ministry's offices, quite unlike the way she had gently persuaded Dudley into the car and made an entire trip out of the visit downtown when he turned eleven.
“Listen you,” she hissed into his ear. Her claw like fingers dug into his shoulder through the thin t-shirt. “Don't tell anyone at the Ministry that you can hear voices. We already know that you're crazy, and the last thing we need is the government telling us what to do with you.”
Harry knew better than to say he could hear voices. He didn't need Aunt Petunia hissing and buzzing beside him like an angry bee.
“Do you understand me?” she asked when he hadn't given her a response.
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he replied dully.
In front of them, an old woman kept an equally claw-like grasp on the shoulder of a boy with a round face. “Now Neville, remember what I told you?”
Harry watched curiously as the boy nodded.
“Have you been practicing?” the old woman asked, and the boy nodded again. He mumbled something that might have been yes, Gram, but Aunt Petunia was talking again and drowned out the other sounds in the room.
“You better be grateful for this, boy,” she said, drumming her fingers in an agitated fashion.
Harry winced as her thumb dug into his shoulder blade. He wasn't too sure if she was expecting a response, but she carried right on anyways without giving him a chance.
“That stupid sister of mine. If she had just kept quiet and done what she had been told, it would have been so much easier on all of us.” Aunt Petunia gave an anguished sigh, the one that she normally gave when thinking of an injury done to her. “Our parents had already forgotten her. But she wouldn't let me forget. Always sending me letters. Did you know she even invited me to her wedding? The nerve!”
Harry knew, but only because he had heard the story at least once a month for as long as he could remember. The nerve! he quoted along in his head. To think that I would just happily waltz to her wedding. I know how those magic types view normal people like me. Good sensible normal people, being seen like we're pitiful. Are you listening to me, boy?
She shook him, and the small smile that had been forming on his face slipped off with the motion. His glasses slipped as well. “Are you?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said, and looked straight ahead. Harry nudged his glasses back into place.
The round-faced boy in front of them in line was watching him with the same curiously Harry had shown him. When he caught Harry's glance, he offered a smile as if to say Pain, isn't it?
It is, Harry replied with a subtle nod and the boy's smile widened into a bashful grin.
“Neville, eyes forward. Stop staring, it's rude.” The old woman pinched the boy's ear and turned him around again to face the front.
The line progressed slowly, as the pairs before him disappeared one by one into the testing rooms. Harry was actually starting to get nervous. He knew that he couldn't do magic - he had tried before, and the attempts resulted in Dudley laughing at him and his Aunt Petunia clicking her tongue in an I told you so manner.
But she had always stressed how both of his parents knew magic. How Lily, her sister, was taken because she was from a family of non-magic users, and how James, her brother-in-law, liked to show off all the time. Then why shouldn't he be able to do magic? What if he got into the testing room and suddenly he could cast a spell that had failed him so many times? Would he be sent to school because he did have parents that could use magic? Or would he be sent to an orphanage where all the other magic-using kids went when their parents were normal?
He was jerked out of his thoughts as the boy before him (July 30th, Longbottom, Neville) stepped away from the line into the testing room on the far left.
“Stop fretting,” Aunt Petunia hissed down to him. “You can't do magic. Just accept it.”
Oddly enough, the words had a comforting effect on him. He was certain she didn't mean for them to be helpful, but he repeated them over and over in his head. You can't do magic. Just accept it. All he could do was hear voices, and that wasn't something he wanted to tell people.
Harry looked up when a man coughed to get his attention. The test proctor was a large man, dark skin and dark eyes seeming to reach out to swallow the dim light of the room around them. He had one gold earring, and the tag on his nicely pressed jacket read Shacklebolt.
“And you are?” he asked, voice rumbling deep in his chest.
“July 31st, Potter, Harry,” the boy squeaked. He was trembling so much that he thought his glasses would fall off his nose.
The man looked down at a list on his clipboard, then made a mark with his fountain pen when he found the name. “Very good. Come along then.”
Harry obediently followed after the man in silence. Even Aunt Petunia, who was normally muttering something under her breath in displeasure, was oddly silent.
The testing room was divided into two. The first part was a small sitting room, a few uncomfortable looking chairs and one table with a pitcher of water and paper cups making the only decorations. One of the chairs was already filled by a rather unpleasant looking woman dressed in pink and a frog-like face. She didn't glance up from her notepad as they entered.
The long wall across the room had a window that looked into the actual testing room: White with fluorescent light, and two metal folding chairs separated by a card table. There was another folding chair in one of the corners.
“Now, Harry,” the man said. “Would you like your mother to wait out here or have her come into the room with you?”
“She's my aunt,” Harry said quickly, and the woman in pink in the corner of the room made a small sound that was rather like a gurgle. “Would it be okay if she waited out here?”
Aunt Petunia made a small noise of her own, but it was cut off when the man opened the door to the testing room and said, “Come along this way, Harry.”
Separating himself from Aunt Petunia's pincer grip on his shoulder, Harry stepped through into the other room. He glanced back as the man closed the door. What had been a window on the other side of the door was now a mirror reflecting his pale, nervous face hiding under his mess of dark hair. He tried to comb down his hair with his fingers, but it only stuck right back up again in protest.
The man put a hand on his shoulder and led him over to one of the folding chairs. “My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt,” he said as he sat down in the chair across from Harry. “I'm one of the proctors for the Ministry's examination. The woman you saw sitting outside is the Headmaster for the academy that children with magic are sent to.”
Shacklebolt shifted in his chair and began to make a few notes on the paper on his clipboard. “You said that woman out there was your aunt. Can you tell me about how you came to live with her?” He chuckled at Harry's surprised expression. “Just to squander the time until we are given the go-ahead to continue with the test.” He gave a comforting smile. “What were your parents' names?”
“James and Lily Potter, sir,” Harry said nervously, licking his lips and trying to keep his body still. “Aunt Petunia was my mother's sister.”
The man hesitated, his eyes going wide for a moment as he tapped the nib of his fountain pen against the paper. “You're James and Lily's boy?” He leaned in a fraction, and his deep voice made his words hard to distinguish.
Harry felt his heart constrict and he sat up a bit straighter. “You knew them?”
Shacklebolt looked uncomfortable, though his attention was pulled away as there was a tap at the mirror. “Alright, Harry, time to begin the test. It's fairly simple, so don't worry.” He pointed up at the lights. “Just try to turn these off.”
“How do I do that, sir?”
“Just imagine them turning off and say nox,” he said, making a note on his paper.
Harry looked up at the lights, squinting against their brightness. With every ounce of will that he could muster, he imagined the lights off and said, “Nox.”
The lights flickered slightly, but remained humming over head.
“Nox,” he tried again, and this time they didn't even flicker.
“That's quite all right, Harry,” Shacklebolt said, bringing the boy's attention back to him. “Try to summon this pen.” He set his fountain pen on to the table between them. “Visualise it in your hand and say accio pen.”
Harry did as he was told, and the pen remained stubbornly on the other side of the table.
Shacklebolt didn't say anything as he picked up the pen and made another note on the paper. Harry could hear Aunt Petunia's voice in his head, and he repeated the mantra along with her:
You can't do magic. Just accept it.
“Thank you for taking the time to come out this way,” the man said as he replaced the pen into the breast pocket of his jacket. He made a motion towards the mirror, and the door opened up and a thin-lipped Aunt Petunia hurried into the room and regained her grip on Harry's shoulder.
“Pardon for the trouble,” she said, her voice high and strained. “Come along, Harry.” She was guiding him towards the door in the back of the room when Shacklebolt held out a hand to stop them.
“Just a moment,” he said. “That scar on your forehead, Harry. How did you get it?”
Unconsciously, Harry lifted a hand to flatten his bangs down over the lightning bolt on his brow as Aunt Petunia's grip tightened.
“He's a clumsy child,” she said, pulling Harry back against her. “He tripped and fell. Hit the edge of the back stairs.”
Mute, the boy nodded in agreement.
Shacklebolt didn't look convinced. “Can you speak with the dead, Harry?”
“No, sir,” Harry replied obediently. For the first time since he entered the Ministry, the voices roared in disapproval and he winced at their noise. Of course he couldn't. They never listened when he said anything to them. Besides, what did that have to do with his scar?
Aunt Petunia gave a high-pitched laugh and loosened her grip slightly. “Good day, Mister Shacklebolt,” she said, and ushered Harry out the door. They were silent all the way back through the Ministry and into the parking lot. Once they were shut safely away in her car, she gave another laugh. “There. Done with that. I wonder what I should make for dinner tonight...”
Harry rested his forehead against the window. He remembered that when Dudley came back from the test (“Passing,” Uncle Vernon had termed it with a proud grin. Failing, in his book, was having magic). Aunt Petunia had fixed up an elaborate meal of all of Dudley's favorite foods. He didn't even bother voice an opinion as his aunt muttered to herself and pulled a crumpled shopping list out of her purse.
Outside, the world was grey. It looked like it was going to rain.
*
As a gift to himself on his seventeenth birthday, Harry moved out of Number 4, Privet Drive. As their gift to him, the Dursleys let him go without question. Dudley even separated himself from the couch where he sat all day staring at the telly long enough to give Harry an awkward handshake.
From the kitchen, Aunt Petunia made a sound that could have been a choked and stifled sob if she had been that kind of person, but it was likely just a sound of hmph, I am DONE with you! I've upheld my obligation to my sister long enough.
He left the house with naught but two suitcases and a light heart, and spent the night in a rather run-down hostel because he hadn't had a chance to go to the bank. The Dursleys weren't about to spend any more of their hard earned money on him. Not when his parents had left him a fortune.
Over the next few days, Harry set to work to find a place where he could live in relative comfort without squandering his money. His education was nothing to brag about, and he had no job to occupy his time with. The days passed slowly but he was feeling far better than he had in a long time.
At first, he frequented the library. He had developed a taste for reading when he was still living with the Dursleys, but he quickly found out that he couldn't handle the silence. The voices were much louder when there was nothing to block them out.
So then he checked out the books and went to sit in places like a bench on a busy street corner or in a shopping mall. It was a relief, sometimes, to hear the noise of the living instead of the clamor of the dead.
Other times, he would sit in his flat - his depressingly empty flat that reflected just what he had to show for life. He would sit there at the little round table in the kitchen that had two chairs even though he had no one else over, and nursed a mug of tea between his hands and listened to the silence. Of course, the silence was never really all that quiet.
And, sometimes, that was a relief as well.
*
The dead never had anything interesting to say. Harry learned this when he was younger, though that never stopped him from paying attention to them from time to time just to see if anything changed (nothing ever did; the dead were a surprisingly constant factor). One would squabble about an unjust death in a duel, another would give a keening whine as they pined for a loved one. More often, they voiced a constant repetition of mundane tasks if the person had died normally - whatever normally was.
Harry began to figure that they only reason they were so noisy was that they knew he could hear them, and just wanted someone to listen. He couldn't blame them. Sometimes, he would respond to their persistent nagging, though they carried on with their one sided conversations without even acknowledging the fact that he attempted anything at all.
It hadn't been until after he moved out of Number 4, Privet Drive, that he learned that he was not the only one that could hear the dead. For some reason, this surprised him more than it should have (considering that man Shacklebolt's question all those years ago). One of the books that he checked out from the library had been a normal person's guide to trying to converse with those beyond the veil. That is to say, a guide for people who did not have magic to try and speak to loved ones that had passed on. It was written by a fairly popular and charismatic wizard with an annoyingly perfect smile. When he had looked up the book online, many witches and wizards saw the book as a very good prank. At least, those were the few opinions that weren't commenting on the author of the book himself and how annoyingly perfect in general he seemed to be.
All of those with magic knew that speaking to the dead was impossible for normal people.
Even in the magic-using world, there were few that could actually communicate with the dead. He was one of them.
He learned that when a baby was born with a lightning-shaped birthmark, it meant that they had the ability communicate with those who had passed on. Centuries ago, back when magic was still wild and there was no Ministry to govern them, people with the lightning mark were respected and thought of in high regard.
As the Ministry began to form and gain control, they wanted complete mastery over every aspect. Including the voices of the dead. They created the Dementors, fearsome creatures that would administer a deathly 'kiss' to any individual the Ministry selected. The spirits of the Kissed became loyal dogs to the Ministry. They were used as couriers and spies.
In order to ensure that there would be no attempt to rival their monopoly of the dead, the Ministry decided the next step would be to kill those who had the lightning bolt - those who could speak to and hear the voices of spirits.
For awhile, Harry was curious if he was indeed one of these individuals. Sure, he had the scar of a lightning bolt on his forehead, but it was just that: A scar. Every so often, he would catch himself running the tips of his fingers over the raised surface. It wasn't a birthmark, or something he had been born with. It was something he had been given.
So was that why he could only hear the dead? In return for giving up his magic he had been given the ability to hear voices of things and people dead and gone.
It didn't seem like a very fair trade, all things considered.
*
After living on his own for three years, he was beginning to think that he was going to go mad. He was surrounded by normal people that went on with their normal lives and with concerns that seemed so trivial to him. What were their problems compared to his? He belonged in the world of magic, but he was shunned from it because he himself did not have the skills. He could hear the dead, but couldn't tell them to go away.
He was going to go crazy.
He met Hermione Granger a few days after he turned twenty-one. She was the one that he had been waiting for, even though he didn't know it then. She was the one that turned his life back around.
*
She appeared before him as if by magic, and he would have been convinced as such if her face had not been flushed and chest heaving from having run, and had he not heard her footsteps pounding out across the open avenue before reaching him. So Harry knew that she had ran to get to where he sat on the bench, but she appeared so suddenly that it really did take him by surprise.
“Are you Harry Potter?” she asked, breathless.
“Are you coming on to me?”
She gave him a look that let him clearly know that she was not coming on to him (nor interested in doing so) in any shape or form and he felt very foolish for having asked. Still, she sat down next to him on the bench and repeated her question. “Are you Harry Potter?” She sat on the side where there was hardly any room to begin with, and so he wriggled out of the way so they weren't touching.
Harry shifted uncomfortably at the questions, smoothing his hair over his scar and fidgeting with his glasses before saying, “Yeah.”
With a victorious grin, she stuck out her hand in to the space between them. “I am Hermione Granger. I wish to make you an offer.”
Confused as to how this might have been different from coming on to him, Harry regarded her hand with an air of caution. “What kind of offer?”
“Those voices. You can hear the dead.” She said this so matter of factly that at first he accepted it as if she had been talking about the weather.
But then the implications of her words sunk in and he stiffened. “What makes you say that?”
“Your scar,” she said, and frowned the way a mother would as he started to fuss again with his hair. “Knock that off, would you? You're just making yourself look terribly unkempt when you muss it about like that.” Hermione sighed and shook her head. “I have ways of knowing these things. It's not that hard if you know where to look.”
“Alright, fine, but why single me out? Surely there've got to be... plenty of other people out there. Ones that could actually speak back to those obnoxious voices in their heads, unlike me. I've only got half the glory,” Harry snapped back. Now that she was calling out his ability, he felt defensive about it.
She shook her head and scooted a bit closer, an eager look on her face. “You don't need to speak to them for this idea to work. In fact, it's better that you can't.”
Harry hesitated, then scooted away to maintain the space between them. “Is this normally how you start conversations with strangers?”
She rolled her eyes and said, “We're not strangers any more. You're Harry Potter and I'm Hermione Granger. If you shake my hand then we would have officially met.”
“If I shake your hand I'm not agreeing to any nefarious plan, right?”
“Of course not,” Hermione said, scandalized. “I want to work with you. I can't do that successfully if I force you into service.”
Harry straightened his shoulders and took her offered hand. “Then I apologize for before. It is very nice to meet you, Miss Hermione Granger.”
With yet another look of victory on her face, she returned the handshake with enthusiasm. “Now, would you like to hear my offer?”
“I suppose I must,” Harry said, but he found that he was actually quite interested. “So why does it not matter if I can't speak to the dead?”
Hermione folded her hands in her lap, the energy from before drawn back in as she held herself in a professional manner. “I've heard rumors of a machine that has the ability to allow the user to speak to the dead.”
Harry swallowed, his throat going dry. “Then what do you need me for?”
“Well, it hasn't actually been tested,” she confessed. “There aren't many left that can speak and hear the dead naturally. This machine was made with the intention of such an ability, but no one knows if it works or not.”
Naturally. The word made him feel uneasy. He leaned back against the bench, smoothing his thumbs over the cuffs of his jacket. “Why are you so eager to invest in this?”
Hermione gave a small clever smile. “It's just that to me: An investment. It's a chance to go against the Ministry. If word got out to the Ministry that a project like this is going on - that you are alive, then that would really put them in a tight spot.”
“It'll put me in a fairly tight spot as well.” Still, Harry tilted his head to the side, acknowledging her idea but not quite agreeing to it just then. “That's a fairly dangerous proposition, Miss Granger. If they can confirm my ability to hear the dead - which I have no idea how you learned about, as I've not told any one except for my aunt and she would sooner die than let anything strange taint her family - then there is the probability that I could be killed.”
“Indeed, Mister Potter, I am aware that what I am asking you is high in danger and not exactly guaranteed to succeed. As for how I know of your ability, have you heard of a group called the Phoenix Order?”
He shook his head. “If you know about that I can hear the dead, then surely you know that I can't use magic. And I don't really fit in with the normal people. I only recently learned that this mark means I can communicate with the dead.” He pointed angrily at his forehead.
Hermione held up her hands to try and calm him down. “I understand, Mister Potter. I also realise that what I am telling you now is a lot to get your head around, and not a lot of details to back it up.” She rose to her feet and pulled out a pen and a crumpled receipt. “Here's my phone number. Call me if you want to hear more.”
“I don't have a phone,” Harry said as he automatically reached for the offered paper.
She gave him a disapproving frown but pressed the paper into his hand anyways. “Well, then use a payphone for all I care.” Hermione tossed a few strands of her hair over her shoulder. “Just think about it, alright?”
He paused, then nodded, pocketing the number. “I will.”
She smiled, the expression looking as if she was honestly delighted that he accepted. Then she turned around and walked away.
*
“Miss Ganger?”
“This is she.”
“This is Harry. Potter. We met the other day?”
“Yes, of course I remember you. So?”
“So what?”
“Have you thought about it? Or else why would you be calling me?”
“Oh, yes, right. I did.”
“And?”
“Do you have time to meet up? I'd like to discuss the offer more before I accept.”
“An excellent choice, Mister Potter. Is tomorrow at three all right with you?”
“That's fine. Oh, and, I just bought a mobile. You can reach me at this number.”
“Wonderful. Then I'll send you a text with details for the meeting.”
“Great. See you tomorrow.”