No Fortress Is So Strong, Chapter 03
Title: No Fortress Is So Strong
Summary: In 1981, the two Potter sons had their fates switched, and Nicolas Potter became a famous face. But there are those that know the truth, that the real Chosen One was the younger child. The Slytherin. Now, two brothers share a destiny.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Brothers. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes & Caveats: See chapter one.
Many, many thanks go to my intrepid team of beta readers: Micah and Salazire, who are thorough and clever and absolutely fabulous.
“When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.” ~Antisthenes
Chapter Three: Meetings
It was a long and very loud row, with Uncle Vernon bellowing threats, Aunt Petunia shrieking insults, Dudley’s head swinging back and forth as if he were watching a tennis match, and Nick making loud and ineffectual protests that went largely unheard in the din. Nick thought that for all that his aunt and uncle insisted on keeping the neighbours in the dark, they were doing an awful lot of shouting that the neighbours would undoubtedly hear.
And it was amongst all this shouting that Nick nearly missed the quiet knock on the door. He froze and stopped his protests, cocking his head to listen. Aunt Petunia saw the gesture and clutched fearfully at Uncle Vernon’s arm, turning to stare at the door in dread.
“Boy,” Uncle Vernon whispered hoarsely, snatching at Nick’s arm. “Go. Upstairs. Now.”
Nick opened his mouth to protest, and Uncle Vernon shoved him hard, nearly knocking him over. Deciding it was best to continue the argument at a later time, Nick went.
He paused outside the kitchen, wondering who was at the door, and listened as Uncle Vernon answered the door with a hearty, strained hello.
Aunt Petunia shrieked.
Nick lunged back into the kitchen, not knowing what to expect but hoping that, somehow, it was a way to ensure he got to go to wizard’s school.
There was a woman standing on the steps, tall and stately, and dressed entirely in a long emerald green dress. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly into a severe bun, and a pair of square spectacles sat perched on her pointy nose, through which a pair of beady dark eyes gazed narrowly at Nick’s uncle.
“Mr. Dursley,” the woman said crisply. “My name is Minerva McGonagall. I’m here to speak to your nephew.”
“Full of woes, boy? You weren’t born on a Wednesday, as I recall.”
And…
“Not long now, Harry. A friend will contact you soon.”
Dare he hope? It had been such a bizarre conversation from start to finish, as if the man in black had been waiting for him, had known exactly what Harry had been doing that day, and even known he would sit on that bench before Harry himself had known. Was that possible? Could someone know him so well, someone he’d never met before?
Harry’s heart clenched painfully. In his backpack at the Williamsons, Harry had a note from the person who had dropped him off on the step of St. Colonus’s Children’s Home in London. It was written on thick, creamy parchment and simply stated his name, his birth date, and that he had been orphaned on Halloween.
Was it too far-fetched to wonder if it wasn’t entirely true? Could, perhaps, the dark man that Harry had spoken to be some sort of cousin or uncle?
His breath suddenly short, Harry got up off the swing in the Williamsons’ backyard and entered the spacious house.
“I’m going to the library, if that’s all right,” Harry said to his foster mother. Anna Williamson looked up in surprise, then pulled her hands out of the bowl of breadcrumbs she was sprinkling on the night’s chicken dinner.
“All right, Harry,” she said, going to the sink to wash her hands. “Just let me watch you go down the street, all right?”
“Of course,” Harry said dismissively, and waited impatiently for her to finish washing her hands, then led the way to the door. In the suburb the Williamsons lived in, the library was just down the street within three-minutes’ walking distance. From where he stood on the porch, he could see the front door.
“Go on then, Harry,” Anna said, sitting down on the swinging bench where she could watch Harry walk. “Keep an eye on the clock please, I’ll be out in an hour and a half to watch you walk home. Don’t start walking until you see me wave, all right? And don’t run off to the park again, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry said dutifully, and started off down the sidewalk.
The library down the street made staying with the Williamsons one of the easier foster homes for him, especially during summer holidays. When his social worker returned to take him away to a new foster home, he would miss the library the most.
The door jangled when he pushed it open, a gust of cool air flowing out over him, carrying the scent of ink and paper and dust.
He stood there for a moment, thoughtful, remembering the strange things the man in black had said. He’d called him Wednesday’s child, Harry was certain of it. What a strange thing to call someone, as if a day of the week was able to have children.
Maybe it was a reference to a story, Harry thought, starting to walk forward. He supposed he could start in an encyclopaedia, and look up the term Wednesday’s child.
But there was nothing in any of the encyclopaedias about children born on Wednesdays, or any other day of the week. Harry wondered vaguely what day he had been born on, since the man (his uncle? cousin?) had said that Harry hadn’t been born on a Wednesday. Harry rubbed at his forehead in confusion. Nothing made any sense.
Perhaps he wasn’t related to Harry at all, and just knew him very well, somehow - but that didn’t make any more sense than anything else. In Harry’s experience, if you weren’t someone’s son, then they didn’t care if you were born on a Wednesday or a Tuesday or on an effing Black Day or White Day or any other day. So at the very least, the man had to have been friends with Harry’s parents…except he hadn’t seemed to like Harry’s father. Perhaps his mother? Or perhaps he hadn’t liked them at all, but was still related? It was possible, wasn’t it, that he was Harry’s long-lost relation…
Harry firmly shook the thoughts away and glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes had passed already. Harry turned back towards the books, determined to understand what the man had said to him - but he never got the chance. The door jangled, and Harry looked up. He dropped his book in dismay.
It was Anna Williamson, teary-eyed, and leading a man into the room. The man’s name was Michael Rider, and he was Harry’s social worker.
“Hello, Harry,” Michael said, grinning down at him. “Look at you, you’ve grown!”
Harry stared back, then slowly closed the book and carefully placed it on the shelf. He took several steadying breaths before he took his hand away from the spine. For some reason, at least a month before Harry had expected it, his social worker was here to take him away again.
Harry’s eyes met his foster mother’s where she stood behind Michael’s back, wondering what she or her husband had done. She looked at him through watery eyes, her face so sad and apologetic that Harry had to force himself not to grimace and turn away. Instead, he allowed a black look to enter his eyes.
He hadn’t cared about them…or at least, not very much, but he’d been here for two months already and he’d hoped to stay a while longer. It had been a nicer stay than many, barring the mandatory evening family time; and he’d loved having the library so close.
But now that was over, and Michael was still smiling at him, although the smile was soft and sad now.
“I’m afraid we have to go now, Harry,” Michael said, placing a hand on Harry’s unmoving shoulder, and Harry nodded and pushed himself to his feet. His eyes met Anna’s again, and her face crumpled. Harry watched her turn away and raise her hands to cover her face.
Then he turned and followed Michael out of the library and back to the house, where Harry’s belongings - those he was allowed to take - would be packed up in a single duffle bag while the rest remained behind, a testament to his time there.
Harry felt a rush of anger - not at the Williamsons any longer, but a far stronger anger at himself. Over and over again this had happened, he’d thought he wasn’t getting attached and when the inevitable time came to leave, he realized he had become attached, in spite of himself. Furious, Harry stamped ruthlessly at the sadness in his heart and told himself, yet again, that he would stop hoping for anything different.
There wasn’t anything different.
Deep in his mind, a tiny, nearly inaudible voice cried out for a tall man in black, who was Harry’s last, final hope. Harry felt that hope and crushed it ruthlessly.
The woman - Professor McGonagall - tapped open the gateway to the wizard’s shopping alley, and Nick gaped in delighted amazement. The alley was long and winding, and filled to the brim with shops and wares and people in brightly coloured robes, many of them with tall, pointed hats. Nick nearly broke his neck trying to look at everything at once.
“We’ll be going to Gringotts first,” Professor McGonagall said briskly, heading off down the street, weaving her way through the people and past the shops.
Nick hurried after her, breathlessly asking, “Gringotts?”
“The bank,” she said, lifting a hand and pointing. Up ahead, an enormous white-marble building rose crookedly into the sky, looking for all the world that a light wind would knock it down. Written on the highest part (in gold!) was the name: Gringotts.
Nick’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, and he craned his head back to stare at the imposing building, not understanding how the people in normal London couldn’t see it. Surely one could see it over the other buildings?
And on the steps, when Nick dropped his gaze - two uniformed things that were a head shorter than Nick himself, short and squat and very, very ugly, dressed in black uniforms and cloaks with Gringotts Bank written on the back.
“What are those…?” Nick asked breathlessly as they approached.
“Goblins,” came the amused reply. “They run the bank. Don’t ever try to cross them.”
“Like I would!” Nick said, wide-eyed, and he spoke the truth. Those things were scary!
Nick followed Professor McGonagall into the bank through two separate sets of doors, the second one of which had a grim, threatening poem inscribed upon it. Nick gulped and stayed close to the Professor’s tall form as she strode straight up to an unoccupied goblin teller.
“We’re here to visit the Potter vault,” she said crisply, and the goblin fixed her with one beady eye. To Nick’s undying admiration, McGonagall fixed it with one right back.
“Key?” the goblin asked grudgingly, and McGonagall reached into a pocket of her green robes, which Nick just realized she hadn’t been wearing when she’d picked him up that morning - he clearly remembered her in a dress of the same colour. And yet, just as clearly, she was dressed in long, flowing robes.
Nick shook his head, sure he was dreaming, and watched as she pulled out a pair of golden keys.
“They are both here,” McGonagall said, glancing at Nick with an unreadable expression. “Only one will be used today, however. If you could blood-set one, if you please, to Nicolas Potter.”
The goblin looked unhappily gleeful - if that was possible - as he accepted a key. Then, so fast Nick barely jerked before it happened, the goblin swept out a disproportionally long arm, snatched up Nick’s hand, and jabbed the sharpest part of the key into the fleshy part of his palm.
“Yeow!” Nick yelped, and snatched his hand back as swiftly as it had been snatched in the first place. There was a hole in his hand slowly oozing blood. Glaring, he stuck the small wound in his mouth as the goblin grinned unrestrainedly at him and created an imprint of the bloody key. After a moment and a few flicks of the goblin’s surprisingly nimble fingers, the key was suddenly dangling in front of him, hanging from a slender golden chain.
“Over your neck, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said briskly, and Nick did as she said. “You’ll never be able to lose it, now,” she explained as she gestured at his bleeding hand. “If you misplace it, it will reappear around your neck. If it’s stolen, the same.”
“Oh,” Nick said, grudgingly impressed, and turned the key to look at it. It was still streaked with his own blood, and Nick grimaced before wiping it off on his cousin’s old clothes. When he looked up again, Professor McGonagall was striding away, following a second goblin towards the far wall and a large wooden door.
The teller growled loudly. Nick gulped and hurried away.
“It’s your birthday, isn’t it Harry?” Michael said lightly from the front seat of the car. Harry turned his head away from watching the scenery go by.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“The big one-oh,” Michael said, smiling. “Wow Harry, ten years old. Feel any different than yesterday?”
A bit more lost, perhaps, Harry thought bleakly.
“Nope,” he said calmly. “Exactly the same as yesterday.”
“That’s how they all go,” Michael commiserated. “Even when you’re my age. It’s almost as if you change ages somewhere in the middle of the year without realizing it.”
“Yeah,” Harry said lifelessly, turning to stare out the window again. They were leaving central London now, driving past larger and larger gardens and houses, bigger and bigger trees, more grass and plants and flowers. He thought Michael might ask him what he got for his birthday, but was relieved when he didn’t. He hadn’t been able to fit the large drawing pad and coloured pencils into his bag, so the unused pad and unopened pencils were still in his old room at the Williamsons’.
Michael seemed to sense his souring mood, so the rest of the drive was spent in silence, until they pulled up in front of a smallish house in the outskirts of London. Harry looked it over with a practiced eye. The lawn was flawlessly green and immaculately trimmed. These people either had a gardener or loved to garden themselves, or just wanted their yard to look good. Regardless, they were clearly going to be strict about its upkeep, which was fine. Harry was good at gardening, it had been one of his many chores over the years, and the most common one as well.
There were no toys on the lawn, drive, or walkway, no bicycles or balls or even any footprints in the flowerbeds. There were clearly either no children at all, or they weren’t allowed to play out front.
“I’m sorry for this, Harry,” Michael said from the front seat, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. “For the abruptness, I mean. I’m afraid your new foster family are just an unprepared as you, so please, please Harry, give them a chance, all right?”
“Yeah, I will,” Harry said indifferently, opening the door and getting out. He heard Michael doing the same as he turned and reached in the car for his bag and swung it over his shoulder.
“Want me to carry that, son?” Michael said kindly, and Harry shook his head, turning his head away to hide the bitter twist to his mouth. Son…
Michael sighed and led the way up the walkway to the door, knocking lightly. After a moment, there was a soft patter of footsteps and the door was opened.
An older woman stood there, iron-grey hair pulled back into a messy bun, wrinkles lining her face. Her mouth spread in an uncertain smile when she saw them.
“Come in, come in!” she said, gesturing them inside. “You must be Harry James. I’m Donna Rogers.”
“Hello, Mrs. Rogers,” Harry said dutifully, and got his cheek pinched for his trouble. When she turned to greet Michael, Harry dropped his eyes to the floor, a dull feeling of hopelessness invading his chest.
One wild cart ride later, Nick stumbled out onto wobbling legs, a little green in the face. Those twisty turns…
“Key, please,” their escort demanded, making the please sound like a threat. Nick gulped and pulled his key chain over his head, handing it over. The goblin fitted it into the keyhole and hauled open the door. A lot of green smoke billowed out, and Nick watched it in interest, wondering where it had come from. Then he looked into the vault, and his jaw dropped again.
Stacks and stacks of thick gold coins, mounds of silver, and piles of scattered bronze.
“Whoa!” Nick breathed, taking a step forward. “Is this…all mine?”
“Half of it,” McGonagall said softly, and Nick turned to ask who the rest of it went to but she gently pushed him into the vault before he could, and started explaining the currency. For a panicked moment his brain was locked between intense curiosity on the vault’s other owner and fear of missing something important that Professor McGonagall was saying, before he forcefully focused on her and made a mental note to ask about it later.
He was told he had a limit of forty galleons, which were the gold coins. Professor McGonagall told him to take out his coin purse and looked surprised when he confessed he didn’t have one, then her face changed to a look of resigned amusement.
“Into your pockets, then, and we’ll look to buy you a coin purse first,” she said, her face softening, and Nick proceeded to count out forty gold coins and stuff them into his pockets, where they bulged comically.
After another wild cart ride, Nick stood blinking in the bright sunshine outside Gringotts, feeling a crazed urge to buy everything in sight. He held back, however, and let McGonagall lead him to a shop that professed to stock Every Bag of Every Size, Shape, and Colour!
And it was true, Every Bag had tote bags and book bags and shoulder bags and coin bags in every type imaginable. There were leather ones and knitted ones and beaded ones and crazily designed ones, and Nick browsed up and down the aisles in stunned disbelief. There, one had a moving image on it, of a type of animal half bird and half horse!
But McGonagall was ushering him along, so he at last picked out a nice brown leather coin purse with black stitching and drawstrings, choosing it after great deliberation over a flat, glossy black purse that hung on the belt and had a buckled flap. It cost three sickles and got Nick fourteen silver coins back in change, spilling over his hands and spinning on the countertop.
“I think I need another one,” Nick questioned uncertainly. “It can’t all fit, surely?”
“Of course it can,” McGonagall said with certainty. “It’s magic.”
And sure enough, all fifty-three coins fit in the small bag with room to spare, and when they were all put away and Nick put the purse in his pocket, it looked like it barely took up any room in there at all.
Then, before they left, Professor McGonagall snapped her fingers apologetically.
“While we’re here, you should also get a book bag,” she said, leading him down the aisles to the relevant section. Nick chose a dark blue beaver hide bag and paid twelve silver sickles for it.
That’s when they started shopping in earnest. Professor McGonagall took him to a shop full of magical trunks, where Nick picked out one made of rich, dark-red wood with golden hinges and clasps and a huge, magical lock. Like the coin purse and book bag, it too was bigger inside than it looked from the outside.
Then they went to the bookstore and bought Nick’s schoolbooks. McGonagall practically had to drag him away from the wealth of wizarding information in there, but once out his attention was caught up with a million other things. They went to the Apothecary, a shop Nick could smell from thirty yards away, then to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions to get him fitted for his school uniforms, and to the Potions and Astronomy Supplies store for a pewter cauldron, a set of scales and a collapsible brass telescope.
Finally they went to buy his magic wand at a dim little shop called Ollivander’s.
A softly tinkling bell announced their entrance, and a stuffy pressure made itself known on Nick’s eardrums. Dust and magic tickled at his nose.
“Good afternoon,” a soft voice said, and Nick jumped in startled surprise. From out of nowhere, it seemed, an old man had appeared. He had silvery, moon-like eyes that stared hard at Nick’s face, lingering especially on the jagged scar that sliced through one eyebrow and down over his eye, ending on his cheekbone. Nick shifted uncomfortably, feeling vaguely like he was being x-rayed.
“Mr. Nicolas Potter,” Mr. Ollivander - for that’s who it must have been - said softly. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Nick said nervously.
“And I you, child,” came the returned whisper. The old man stared for a moment, then Nick suddenly got the feeling he was resisting a smile. “Crafty old bugger, he is,” he whispered, to Nick’s confusion. “Too clever by half.”
One arm reached behind the old man and returned bearing a box that he’d picked up without even looking at it.
“Twelve inches, oak, with a core of dragon heartstring. Go ahead, give it a wave.”
Nick waved, only to have the wand snatched out of his hand at once.
“Walnut, unicorn tail hair, nine-and-a-half inches. No, here; cherry wood and dragon heartstring, ten inches.”
Wand after wand after wand, until Nick started getting nervous that maybe he wasn’t really a wizard, after all.
Until, at last… “White oak and phoenix feather, eleven inches.”
And a warm, delightful glow filled him, making his heart skip a beat and his breath catch.
“Oh, bravo!” Ollivander said, clapping happily. “Well done, indeed. That’s six galleons, if you please.”
Nick counted out the gold coins, still clutching his white oak wand in his fist. Ollivander gave him the wand’s box and a tin of polish and sent him on his way.
As they were striding back down the alleyway, McGonagall stopped at another smelly shop, although it was much improved over the apothecary. It was Eeylop’s Owl Emporium and it was clearly a magical pet shop.
“In the Wizarding World,” McGonagall began, “we use owls for post. They carry letters to us and we can send letters out with them. Owls are very intelligent creatures and although the school will supply you with school owls, I would strongly recommend getting one of your own. I think you’ll find you will have use for it, and there is nothing like a good owl of your own.”
“I’d love an owl,” Nick said, sparing a thought towards Aunt Petunia’s reaction to bringing one home. The thought made him want one even more.
“Very good,” McGonagall said, and led the way into the shop.
There were not only owls there, although a significant part of the shop was dedicated to them and their supplies. Toads sat gulping in their tanks, beside brilliantly-coloured snails oozing up the glass, rats playing in their cages, cats meowing from crates and even a few wicked-looking birds of prey, situated behind the counter. Occasionally, one would shriek piercingly.
“They’re not allowed at Hogwarts,” McGonagall informed Nick when she caught him looking at one particularly handsome falcon, “aside from the fact that they’re very difficult to handle.”
Sighing, Nick turned away obediently and made his way to the owls. He browsed up and down the aisle, examining the owls. There were all kinds - big owls, owls the size of his fist, great-horned owls and imposing eagle owls. One brave barn owl hooted at him softly when he passed it, and rubbed its face against his finger when he poked it into the cage. He smiled blindingly at Professor McGonagall and got a slight but genuine smile in return.
Harry felt like he was a plant that had been roughly uprooted and sloppily replanted somewhere else, but that was not a new feeling for him.
The new house’s closest park was a thirty minute walk away, and the closest library even further. So the day after his arrival Harry found himself spending his second day as a ten-year-old walking around the block, wearing a light jacket against the cool air.
Glancing up at the sky, he noted the low grey clouds and the smell of impending rain. He rather thought that Donna and Pat Rogers would like him to come inside, but Harry felt no inclination to do as such, so he continued around the block for a second time.
When he got to the turn he needed to take, he hesitated. He’d been that way, knew the path, had looked at everything interesting to look at. Straight ahead the street glided out of sight, promising new adventures and interesting things.
He looked back down the street at the Rogers’ house, small and dim and grey, and then he stepped off the curb and continued on. Straight.
He knew the foolishness it was, walking in an unknown neighbourhood without knowing where he was going. He was nine - ten - years old and it seemed like every foster parent he’d ever lived with had taken it upon themselves to inform him of the ways of the world, just in case he hadn’t heard it before. They had all seemed deaf to his protests that he knew there were kidnappers and murderers and molesters out there.
Regardless, he knew it was foolishness, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. So he walked, aimlessly and for a long time, until the neighbourhood grew grimmer and less cared for, the houses smaller and dirtier and fenced in with their gates locked. Harry paused, looking around uncertainly.
There were quiet, indistinct voices coming from around the corner, and Harry shuffled curiously forward to peek around a stunted, dying tree.
It was the corner lot, which held a burned-out husk of a house. Charred wood and a fine layer of black charcoal was predominant - that and a group of young boys. There were three of them, the oldest clearly about sixteen, the youngest no older than Harry himself.
The two older boys were clearly the ringleaders, the youngest probably a tagalong-younger-brother. The two older boys were smoking something from odd-looking pipes, each sitting on a more-or-less solid beam of wood, leaving the youngest boy to stand or sit on the blackened ground.
Harry watched interestedly as the two older boys murmured quietly to each other, occasionally sparing a word for the standing boy, and finished up their smoke. Then they stood and moved off, away from Harry towards another section of the neighbourhood.
Harry turned away and left, for it was getting dark now and he had to walk a long way. The Rogers’ would be terrified and then furious, Michael would have been called, possibly the police. Harry found he couldn’t care about it.
McGonagall bought Nick dinner when they were finished, back at the Leaky Cauldron. This time, since they weren’t hurrying discretely through, Nick found himself, bizarrely, the focus of intense whispers and, even more inexplicably, the recipient of an endless amount of handshakes.
When Nick looked up at the Professor in beseeching confusion, she clapped her hands sharply. The pub came to attention like a classroom full of students, abruptly falling silent and respectful.
“Now you’ve gotten your chance to greet Mr. Potter,” she said briskly, “but I’m afraid we’re both quite famished, so if you please, we’re to be left to dine, now.”
Mutters sounded, disappointed and rebellious, but the crowd slowly dispersed back to their own tables, and the old, toothless barman arrived with two huge plates of steak-and-kidney pie. Nick’s eyes lit up in surprised delight and he wasted no time in digging in, but only two or three bites into the meal he slowed, his mind latching onto two strange occurrences that stood out in a sea of strange occurrences.
“Professor McGonagall?” he murmured, toying with his pie. The Professor looked at him through beady eyes.
“Yes?”
“Why did all those people seem to know me?”
The Professor looked at him for a long moment, then set her fork down.
“I suppose now’s as good a time as any,” she said slowly, and then began to outline a story so unbelievable that Nick sat there for some time after it was finished, trying to get his mind around it.
“My parents were murdered?” he whispered bleakly, and McGonagall nodded, her expression softening. “Why didn’t my aunt and uncle tell me? They told me they died in a gas explosion.”
“I’m afraid I am not privy to your relatives’ minds and motivations,” was the reply, “and I cannot accurately tell you why, nor even hazard a guess.”
“They hate magic,” Nick said glumly. “Always have.”
“Eat your pie, Potter,” she returned. “It’s long gone stone cold by now. Here,” she flicked her wand and steam rose anew from the pies, to Nick’s delight. He moved to put a forkful in his mouth as he thought, his mind spinning around so hard he had to be careful lest it overwhelm him.
Then, although it had been chased right out of his mind by the strange people coming up to him, he remembered - again - what had happened in Gringotts, in his vault. Nick shoved the last bite into his mouth and this time had the presence of mind to wait while Professor McGonagall finished her own.
“Who’s the other owner of my vault?” Nick asked at once, when she at last set her fork down.
“Your younger brother,” she said calmly, and Nick stiffened in his chair, a dim, nearly forgotten memory struggling to make itself known. A feeling that dogged his restless dreams - a flash of green light, a horrible pain in his face, a feeling of abject terror, and the sensation of another presence at his shoulder, smaller than him.
Harry.
“My brother,” Nick said numbly, and his world turned on its axis yet again. His brother.
“Harry James Potter,” McGonagall provided. “He turned ten yesterday, and he is in the fostering system. He lives in the outskirts of London now, with an elderly couple. It is he I wished you to buy an owl for. You can write to him now. Another Professor is likely informing him of our world as we speak.”
There were two silent and unfamiliar cars outside the Rogers’ house, and Michael’s car was parked in the drive. Harry sighed heavily as he dragged his feet up to the lawn, taking bitter pleasure in walking upon it, disturbing its pristine greenness.
Before he reached the door however, one of the cars opened and a tall muscular form unfolded itself from the front seat.
“Hey, boy, are you Harry?” the man said, and Harry stopped walking.
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
“Are you all right?” the man asked, coming closer. As he stepped into the light of the porch, Harry noticed that he was very young, probably not even out of college yet. His face was smooth and unlined.
“Yes,” he said again, answering the man’s question as he came close and bent to look Harry in the face.
“All right,” the tall man said. “Let’s go in.”
“Yes,” Harry sighed, turning back to the door. The neighbour knocked and then opened the door, ushering him inside.
“Mark,” the man called into the front foyer. “I’ve got him. He came home.”
“Harry?” Michael said from where he stood beside another man - Mark something-or-other, obviously.
“Hi, Michael,” Harry said, weary.
“Harry! Wherever did you go? Did you run away?”
“No,” Harry said, derisively. Honestly, did they think he was stupid? He wouldn’t run away unless he was damn sure he could manage it properly, which was not when he had no food and only the clothes on his back and not even a pocket full of money. He continued, widening his eyes and forcing them to water a little. “I was walking around the block and I missed my turn, is all. I got a little turned around, that’s all. I didn’t mean to worry anybody.”
The neighbour who’d been talking to Pat Rogers shook his head and pocketed the notebook he had in his hands.
“Looks like everything’s just fine,” he said wryly. “That’s excellent.”
Harry looked at him, giving nothing away on his face. The man quirked a lip at him, the weary lines on his face deepening with the movement. Harry wouldn’t be able to lay it on too thick with this one.
“I’m okay,” he said simply, careful to appear subdued.
“Very good, son,” Mark said gruffly. “Be careful from now on, yes?”
“Yes,” Harry sighed.
“Perhaps a talk of the ways of the world?” Mark suggested, glancing at Pat Rogers. Harry’s new foster father nodded firmly, and Harry grimaced mentally.
As the two men turned briskly to the door, Harry spoke up and made his voice very small.
“Sorry,” he said tentatively to the two neighbours’ backs.
“That’s all right, son,” Mark said calmly. “Just don’t do it again, all right?”
Harry nodded, and the men walked out, opened the doors to their cars, and drove away.
The rest of the evening was spent convincing Michael he hadn’t meant to get lost and take so long to return, convince Pat that he was so sorry that they had needed to call the neighbours, and convince Donna that he hadn’t meant to make her worry and he was so sorry and made sure to lay it on thick with her.
Then they gave him something to eat and sent him off to shower and bed. Only when he turned off the lights and was just dropping off into a doze, a softer, more glowing light appeared.
Harry opened his eyes and jumped, startled, at the face in front of him.
It was pale grey in the funny light, but Harry recognized the sharp features and long, lank hair. He sat up rapidly, a feeling of relief and delight sweeping through him.
“You came back,” he whispered, smiling. “I didn’t think you’d be able to find me again.”
“Of course I would find you again,” the man said derisively, sneering again. “I’m a wizard.”
Harry scowled.
“Don’t be silly,” he mumbled, and the man raised an eyebrow.
“Silly?” he said, making the word sound like dead rotting maggot invested flesh. “Why ever would I do such a thing? I am, indeed, a wizard. In fact, I am a Potions Master and the Professor of Potions at Hogwarts.”
“Potions?” Harry said doubtfully. “Yeah, and next you’re going to claim you have a staff and are a companion to elves.”
The man looked honestly perplexed. “A…what are you talking about?”
“You know,” Harry said irritably. “Gandalf the Grey?”
“I do not know the reference,” the man said, scowling. “Regardless, I am a wizard; although I carry a wand, not a staff, and I am certainly not a companion to House Elves.”
“What are you doing here, then?” Harry demanded, making sure to keep his voice low. “I…are you going to take me away from this place?”
Be damned, that feeling of hope that came twisting into his chest. He lifted bright eyes to the Professor’s dark ones, knowing they were pleading but unable to stop them.
“Not yet,” the Professor said, and Harry was filled with both despair and joy, despair because he wasn’t here to take him away, joy because he would eventually. “However, I am to tell you another message.” The Professor stood up straight and cleared his throat, then recited:
“‘Tell young Mr. Potter that his brother has gotten his letter and will be sending him one soon. He is to expect a barn owl at his window at midnight.’”
“What does that mean?” Harry said blankly. “I don’t have a brother.”
“That was the message,” the Professor said briskly, turning to go.
“Wait!” Harry gasped, scrambling out of bed. “Please, sir, I don’t understand! I don’t have a brother!”
“Obviously, you do,” the Professor sneered derisively.
“I never sent him a letter!” Harry said desperately.
“I never said you did.”
“But Professor!”
“Not another word, Potter,” the man said irritably, reaching into his pocket. Harry keened, lowly, shifting desperately from foot to foot.
“You called me Wednesday’s child,” Harry blurted out.
“Yes, and?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that you were born on a Wednesday.”
“But you said I wasn’t,” Harry returned swiftly, and the man paused, holding a slender stick in his right hand. Harry stared.
“If I recall correctly,” the man said softly, “you were born on a Thursday. I think, however, you are much more of a Wednesday’s child.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a children’s rhyme called Monday’s Child. Look it up yourself.”
With that, the man spun on his heel and vanished, just like that, only a soft pop accompanying the trick. Harry gaped in disbelief, staring at the spot he had been in.
Dear Harry,
I don’t know if you remember me. I didn’t remember you until someone reminded me. My name is Nicolas Potter and I am your older brother.
I don’t know very much what to say. I got my Hogwarts letter, finally. That’s the letter of acceptance to wizard’s school, where I’m going in September. I asked Professor Magonagal if I could meet you before I left but she said I wouldn’t have time, but I can write you. I will write you every day! I will tell you everything.
I can’t wait to go to school, but I want to see you too. I can see you next summer, when you get your own letter.
This owl is mine. His name is Rocky and he’s a post owl. You can give him a letter and he’ll get it to me, even if you don’t know where I am.
Write back, okay?
Nicolas Potter
Chapter Four