No Fortress Is So Strong, Chapter 06
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 Six: The Brother Wand
At the end of June, Nick reluctantly boarded the school train, dreading his return to the Dursleys. The year had been filled with unimaginable delights and new friends and adventures. The thought that the year was ending, and his time in lessons were to be replaced with chores and misery, was a hollow and unhappy one.
Regardless, he managed to put the thought out of his mind for the duration of the journey. Instead, he spoke cheerfully with his house year mates and teased Katie Bell, his only true competition for the Chaser’s position in the oncoming year.
Despite all of his fervent wishing, however, the day fled past rapidly and the train pulled up at King’s Cross in the late afternoon.
He loitered with his friends while they waited for their families, bidding them all goodbye as they left the station, cheerfully babbling about their year, so that Nick was the last of them to leave Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
Uncle Vernon was waiting for him on the other side of the gateway, his face a dark shade of purple and sweating profusely in the hot afternoon sun. He beckoned angrily at Nick when he saw him, face twisting furiously.
“Keeping us waiting,” he spat when Nick got close enough. “Like a no good ruffian!”
Such was the life of Nicolas Potter.
Sighing, Nick followed his uncle away from the station.
Harry slipped nimble fingers into the loose pocket of an oblivious man’s jacket. They snagged on a few paper notes and he lifted them expertly away, not even touching the fabric. The man continued reading his papers, not having felt a thing.
As Harry slid through the crowd, pushing the notes into his own pocket, he made his way to the edge of the market square where Alex was fidgeting impatiently, having already finished nicking his own target’s pockets.
Harry pulled out the money, counting out a fiver and three one-pound notes. Alex grinned broadly at him from his darkly-tanned face, triumphantly fingering a twenty-pound note that peeked from beneath his long sleeves. Harry blew out a heavy sigh, the air ruffling his fringe.
“Want some ice cream?” Alex asked, nodding at the shop across the way. Harry’s stomach growled, and he sniffed at the aroma of freshly baked waffle cones.
“Yeah,” he said, pocketing the money again. “Come on, then.”
The two boys wound their way through the crowd to the ice cream shop across the way, where Harry got double chocolate in a waffle cone and Alex double strawberry, also with a waffle cone. They sat on the covered tables outside, watching the crowd as they ate. They didn’t speak much, and when they did it was in low murmurs. Mostly they just watched the daylight fade and the people hurry to their destinations.
Eventually they finished their ice creams, but even then they stayed there, with their eyes alert and watchful, until full darkness fell. Only then did Harry rise, stretching slightly, and pull a thin wad of money from his pocket, their total profit for the day’s work.
“Time to go,” he mumbled to Alex, and hunched his shoulders. Alex smiled at him, eyes glittering wickedly in the dim light of a streetlamp a few yards away.
“See you then,” Alex replied, and Harry nodded and turned away, walking quietly down the road towards the main streets where he would flag down a cab. Alex watched him go, fiddling with his napkin. His face was completely emotionless.
On the main street, Harry put on a trembling expression and managed a nervous wave in a passing cab’s direction. The driver spotted him and slowed, and Harry moved towards it, his formerly assured stride suddenly stumbling and very young.
“Can you take me home?” he asked when the driver got out of the car. “I got some money.” Harry gave the man the address of a house a street over from St. Colonus’s, holding out a thin wad of cash.
“Certainly, son,” the driver said assuredly, while opening the back door of the cab. “Get right in, I’ll take you there. What are you doing out here so late, and where are your parents?”
“I’m visiting my uncle,” Harry lied guilelessly, gesturing subtly at a man standing near the corner. “He’s making sure I’m off all right.”
“Ah, very good,” the driver said, waving a hand at Harry’s so-called ‘uncle’. The man gave a surprised wave back. Harry gulped and jumped in the cab.
The driver dropped him off in front of the address Harry had given him, a plain little house with a neglected garden and lawn. The owners spent their summers in the tropics and Harry had found the key they’d left in the flowerpot for the housekeeper. He got out of the cab and paid the driver, thanking him timidly, then hurried up the walk and unlocked the door. He turned and waved at the cab driver, and the man waved back. Harry entered the house and closed the door, watching through the window as the cab drove away.
Sighing, Harry opened the door again and stepped out, locking the house back up. Then he leaned out over the grass, unwilling to walk on it and press footprints in the soft earth, and shoved the key into its spot in the flowerpot, where the housekeeper would find it when she came to feed the cat in the morning. Harry then made his way down the walk, onto the street, and back to St. Colonus’s.
Nick would be home by now, he thought, brightening. There would hopefully be a letter waiting for Harry when he got back.
His steps quickened at the thought.
Hi Harry,
I got home tonight and of course, I had to mow the lawn right away. Apparently there’s a garden competition coming up and Aunt Petunia wants to win it. Not that she’ll win it, since I’ll be the one doing all the work.
Anyways, how are you? Glad that school is out for the summer? I can’t wait until next year, when we’re both on the Hogwarts Express!
Your brother,
Nick
Hey Nick,
I take it you can’t do magic out of school or something? Otherwise, couldn’t you just wave your wand and have the lawn done in a heartbeat?
I’m so glad school is out for the year, but summers are really boring. Only one month until my letter comes though.
I’ll see you on the Express,
Harry
-----
“Michael?” Harry asked, startled. He paused at the foot of the stairs, taking in the sight of his tall social worker. Michael turned, smiling.
“Hello Harry,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“Good, thanks,” Harry replied, coming the rest of the way into the room. “What’s going on?”
“I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Michael said, smiling even wider. “This is Minerva McGonagall…she’s here because you’ve been accepted at a private school for talented children in Scotland.”
“Oh,” Harry said, suddenly speechless. He rapidly calculated in his head to figure out the date. The days tended to blur together in the summer, but he realized after a moment’s thought that it was the 25th of July, a mere six days until his eleventh birthday. His heart was immediately beating too hard from excitement.
“Hello, Mr. Potter,” the tall, severe woman said to him. “I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress. I’ve come for your orientation meeting.”
“I - hello, Professor,” Harry said, feeling flustered and not at all like himself. “Pleased to meet you.” Within a moment, Harry managed an expression of charming innocence, stretching his mouth into a shy smile.
“And you, Mr. Potter,” the Professor said.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Michael said, moving towards the door. “And Harry…”
Harry looked up at Michael’s face as he leaned close, whispering in his ear.
“Try to make this work, all right?”
Harry nodded almost imperceptibly, and Michael shut the door of St. Colonus’s main office as he left.
“This should be one of my easier orientations,” Professor McGonagall said wryly. “You’ve been receiving letters from your brother, I trust?”
“Yes,” Harry nodded, “and a couple of visits from a man too.”
“Yes, the Headmaster did say he was sending someone to explain your brother’s letters,” the Professor said briskly. “So, we shall get right to it. You’ll need school supplies for certain, of course, so we shall start with that. Have you ever heard of Apparating?”
“No,” Harry said blankly.
“It is a magical system of transportation, something like what you might call teleporting, I believe.”
“Oh, like what that man did,” Harry said, brightening with understanding. “Just…vanished. Kind of popped away.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” the Professor said. “There is a variation called Side-Along, where one licensed Apparation practitioner Apparates themselves and a passenger to their destination. This is mostly used for underage witches and wizards such as yourself. It’s quite simple, just take my arm and I’ll do the rest.”
Harry complied, while opening his mouth as he did so.
“You’re coming with me?”
“Of course,” the Professor said crisply. “This is a very abrupt change, even for one such as yourself, Mr. Potter. You will certainly need things explained to you during your first foray into the magical world.”
Harry wanted to snap at her, tell her he had never needed anyone or anything, but a small instinct held his mouth closed. He did not want to make an enemy of this woman, despite the fact that her responsibility over him rankled deeply.
Before he finished the thought in its entirety, a sensation enveloped him that was not unlike being squeezed through a very tight rubber tube, stealing the breath from his lungs. His ears popped and by the time they had rematerialized a split-second later, his fingers and toes were tingling.
He took a moment to catch his breath, before lifting his gaze. They had appeared in a dingy little room that was interesting only by its lack of anything interesting. It was, in fact, very like a wooden box. There were no furnishings of any sort, and because of that the sole door looked bizarrely out of place.
The door however, led to a place of far more interest to Harry.
“Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron,” McGonagall said dryly, as she opened the door. “A gateway between the Muggle world and the Wizarding world.”
“Muggle,” Harry murmured, the word resonating in his memory. “I think Nicolas mentioned those, once. They’re people like Michael, right? That don’t have any magic of their own?”
“Yes, exactly that,” McGonagall said, ushering him inside the main room of the Leaky Cauldron. It was, as Harry quickly realized, a pub. It was dimly lit and full of mismatched tables, with the noise level a low, indistinct murmur. Behind the bar, an old bald man caught sight of them and smiled a toothless grin.
“Just passing through, Tom,” McGonagall interjected quickly, seeing the old man make a movement towards them. “We’ll return for lunch, however, as usual.”
“Right then, Professor,” Tom the barman said cheerfully. “I’ll ‘ave it ready for you.”
“Thank you,” McGonagall said. “Come along then…”
She trailed off, and Harry looked at her curiously. It was almost as if she’d meant to say something…perhaps his name? But she apparently had decided against it.
Harry filed that away for later and did as she had asked, by following her through the dim pub and towards the back door, which opened into a tiny stone-paved yard surrounded by a high brick wall. There was nothing there but a pair of old, dented dustbins, empty of any rubbish.
Harry looked around in interest. Nick’s letters from the previous summer had mentioned the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley, but Harry didn’t remember there being anything about how to get there.
However, the mystery was quickly solved when McGonagall took out what had to be her wand and tapped a brick, making the wall seem to positively melt away.
Harry forced his jaw to stay closed despite a strong urge to gape like an idiot, because Diagon Alley was everything Nick had said it was and a lot more besides.
He wanted nothing so much as to have a dozen pairs of eyes that could take in everything at once, but a faint crawling sensation over his scalp alerted him to McGonagall’s gimlet gaze. She was watching him in amusement, as if knowing what he was thinking.
Harry swallowed down his instinctive glaring expression and stared back at her, blank-faced.
After a moment’s pause where they regarded each other thoughtfully, McGonagall finally gestured that they move along. Harry looked at as much as he could without moving his head too obviously.
When McGonagall said, “Gringotts first,” Harry remembered Nick’s letter from Christmas detailing his trip to the wizard bank, and the gift he’d sent along with it. Harry’s mouth curled into a silly little smile all on its own, which he had to force away when McGonagall raised a brow at him in question.
“Nick told me about Gringotts,” he reluctantly explained when she didn’t look away. “He sent me a coin purse for Christmas.”
“That was very thoughtful of him,” McGonagall said, smiling a little. Harry shrugged.
He kept his composure through his first sighting of a goblin, the identification, and even the surprising key-bonding process, but during the cart ride his façade cracked and let out a glimpse of the little boy inside.
The cart ride was exactly as Nick had described. It was fast and wild and exhilarating, and Harry’s legs trembled when he finally stumbled out of the cart at his and Nick’s shared vault, with his heart pounding from the rush. He couldn’t stop smiling, not even at the goblin’s rough demand for his key.
“You have a forty Galleon limit,” the goblin said grouchily when he unlocked and opened the heavy vault door. Harry glanced at him briefly before turning back to his vault, where piles of gold, silver, and bronze glimmered in dim torchlight.
“Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts,” McGonagall explained, moving over to a chest-high mound of gold coins. “The gold ones here are Galleons. There are seventeen silver Sickles to one Galleon, and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle. Here, forty Galleons.”
“Do I need it all?” Harry asked in disbelief, cradling his hands together to hold the large pile of gold. Even both hands couldn’t hold it all though, and several coins fell to the floor, where they hit with small ringing sounds.
“Likely not,” McGonagall explained, “but it’s always a good idea to have some money put away for the year, just in case. You might need to owl order replacement supplies, for example.”
“Oh,” Harry said in realization, and fumbled to take his coin purse out of his pocket. The forty Galleons fit in easily, without even a lump to show for it, and Harry undid his belt to put the purse on properly. It fit neatly against the bony protrusion of his hip, small, unremarkable, and charmed with a dozen powerful anti-pick pocketing charms.
It abruptly occurred to Harry that he should really figure out a way around those spells. Might come in handy, after all, the ability to pick a wizard’s pockets - or purse as the case might be.
“Come along then,” McGonagall said, as she led him back to the cart. The journey back up to the ground-level of the bank was silent, although Harry thought that was rather required of them, since the wind would have blown away their conversation anyway.
After they left the bank, Harry pulled out the list of supplies that had come with the letter Professor McGonagall had delivered for him. She had said something about St. Colonus’s being a high-traffic area for Muggles and therefore off-limits to official owls.
Next, Professor McGonagall took him to a shop full of magical bags, purported to hold every bag of every size, shape, and colour!, where McGonagall let him pick out a shoulder bag for his textbooks.
Then they went to a store that sold magical trunks, where Harry picked out one made of smooth, pale golden wood with gold hinges and clasps, and a huge, magical lock. Like the coin purse Nick had bought him, it too was bigger inside than it looked from the outside, and Harry thought that the giant, old-fashioned lock couldn’t possibly keep out anyone who knew how to wield even the simplest lock pick. Seeming to pick up on his disbelief, McGonagall reassured Harry that the lock was reinforced with magic, and that not even the most skilled would-be robber could get in.
Harry wasn’t sure, since he thought that if there was a way to put spells on something, surely there was a way to take the same spells off. With that thought in mind, Harry decided to learn how to get past any lock in the world, so he would know how to make the same thing impossible with his own locks.
With a trunk purchased and hastily charmed to have wheels and roll along behind him, Harry followed Professor McGonagall as she led him to the bookstore to buy Harry’s textbooks. Harry’s first impression was amazement at the sheer size of the shop. From the outside front, Harry thought the shop should have been a smallish size, but the reality couldn’t have been more different. He supposed, that like his coin purse and new trunk, the bookshop could fit a lot more inside than it looked like from the outside.
More shelves than Harry could count lined the walls and zigzagged haphazardly through the shop. The setup turned what was originally a spacious place into a cramped and disorganized mess, which radiated a strange sort of charm.
And the shop itself was nothing compared to the books it housed. He remembered Nick expounding on the books that he’d seen and wished he could have bought. This was something that had struck Harry as strange at the time, because his brother didn’t seem to be the bookish type. Now that Harry was here he could see exactly what his brother had meant. There were books on every kind of magical subject imaginable, from planting Snapdragons without getting bitten to common household charms and guides on dueling.
Harry used six Galleons of his remaining money to pick out a small pile of thick books that weren’t required for school. There was one called Common Annoyances that promised simple curses for all circumstances. After looking at the book, Harry fantasized about giving Michael a painful bout of full-body acne in revenge for all those mid-year foster home changes.
McGonagall explained to him what he needed from the apothecary, Slug and Jiggers. She led him directly to the counter and asked for a Hogwarts first year’s kit, and the man obligingly fetched a wooden case from the back, already filled with the required ingredients, while Harry tried to keep his expression from twisting into a grimace of distaste.
Then they went to the apothecary’s partner shop, Potions and Astronomy Supplies, where he was outfitted with the tools needed to make potions. He picked out a nice mortar and pestle, and a set of brass scales and a pewter cauldron, and for Astronomy, a collapsible telescope.
Finally, they went to purchase his wand.
It was the furthest shop from the entrance, tiny, sagging, and very dusty. Peeling gold letters announced Ollivander’s, Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
A softly tinkling bell announced their entrance. The shop was dusty and the air pressed close against Harry’s skin, tingling with magic.
“Good afternoon,” a soft voice said, and Harry would have started if he hadn’t already braced himself for such a thing. From out of nowhere, it seemed, a thin old man had appeared, staring at Harry through silvery eyes that instantly locked onto Harry’s lightning bolt scar. “Mr. Harry Potter,” the man - Ollivander - smiled. “The smallest Potter here at last.”
Harry bristled at that. He hadn’t yet grown as much as he could, he did realize that, but to call him the smallest? He straightened his spine and lifted his chin.
“Hello,” he returned, a little stiffly. He felt that Ollivander was staring at him with far too much intensity.
“I’ve met your brother already,” Ollivander murmured, stepping closer. “Yes, white oak and phoenix feather with a penchant for transfiguration. A very fine wand indeed.”
Harry blinked and felt his sour mood lift a little at this unexpected bit of information about his brother. He leaned forward slightly, fascinated.
“You remember that?” he asked curiously. Ollivander gave a wide but slightly creepy smile.
“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter,” Ollivander whispered. “Every single one.”
“My parents’ wands, too?” Harry asked, feeling a spark of eagerness.
“Yes,” Ollivander said. “Your father was chosen by a mahogany and dragon heartstring wand. Eleven inches, pliable, and very powerful. Like your brother’s wand, it had a strong affinity for transfiguration. Your mother, however, found herself with a willow and unicorn tail hair wand, ten and a quarter inches, a nice wand for delicate charm work.”
“Perhaps we should get young Mr. Potter a wand of his own, Mr. Ollivander?” McGonagall asked, sounding slightly impatient. Ollivander blinked and once again smiled that creepy smile.
“Yes, of course,” Ollivander said. He reached a long arm past Harry’s ear and pulled a box from the shelf behind him. “How about this one. Beech wood and dragon heartstring, nine inches long. Try.”
Harry tried, but it was yanked out of his hand almost immediately, only to be replaced by a seven inch maple and phoenix feather, then by an eight-and-a-half inch ebony and unicorn hair. Each of these wands and their successors were quickly yanked out of his hand and tossed onto a pile Harry had begun to think of as the reject pile, and said pile continued to grow as the afternoon wore on.
As the pile grew bigger, Ollivander grew happier, and dare he even think it, creepier. He seemed almost giddy as he handed Harry wand after wand and snatched them away again, just as fast.
Until, at last, Ollivander paused and rubbed his chin.
“Well yes, now why didn’t I think of it before,” he muttered, and turned away, vanishing into the shadows of the shelves. Harry looked at McGonagall in surprised confusion. She looked back at him with much the same expression.
Ollivander reappeared with a positively dust-covered box, handling it almost reverently as he set it down to open it. He then pulled out a slender wand made of an extremely pale, creamy white wood.
“Holly and phoenix feather,” Ollivander said, gently turning the wand around to hand it to Harry, handle first. “Eleven inches,” he continued as Harry took it, and once he did Harry didn’t know if Ollivander kept speaking, because all his attention was suddenly on the pale wooden wand in his hand.
It was warm while the other wands had been inert, just sticks in his grasp. This one felt positively magical, almost alive. It shivered as he closed his fingers around it, and when he glanced up it almost seemed like the wand had made the room brighter.
Ollivander was looking at him expectantly, so Harry flicked the wand, despite knowing it was already his. It sent a shower of white sparks from its tip, sending the scudding shadows flickering over the walls.
“Oh, bravo,” Ollivander said, looking dead pleased. “Yes, very good indeed, and yet how curious. How very, very curious…”
Harry barely heard him, transfixed by the feel of his wand in his hand. McGonagall had to nudge him in order for him to remember that he had to pay. He opened the purse on his hip, pulled out seven gold Galleons, and handed them to the old man.
As he and McGonagall were leaving, Ollivander spoke up one last time.
“It’s a curious match, young Mr. Potter,” he said, his voice low and ominous. “Curious because I’ve sold one other wand very like yours, in that it contains a core feather from the same phoenix that supplied yours. Yew, thirteen and a half inches, a very powerful wand. The wand, in fact, that gave you - and your brother - the scars on your faces.”
Harry suddenly felt short of breath as he stared back at the creepy old man.
“Curious also,” Ollivander continued, “that it would choose you over your brother. I wonder why that is?” he smiled. “Good day, Mr. Potter. I expect I’ll see you again.”
With that, Harry found himself out on the cobbled street with McGonagall by his side, the door closed tight behind him. He let out a shuddering breath and stared at the wand he still held. It looked completely innocent, the pale holly wood gleaming softly in the wavering daylight.
“Mr. Potter?” McGonagall murmured, and Harry shook himself.
“All done?” he asked, forcing his voice to be casual.
“Nearly,” she replied, after regarding him closely for a moment. “One last stop. I told your brother this when I brought him here last year. We use owls for postal services, as you well know, and it is a very smart purchase for any young witch or wizard, a good post owl. I would highly recommend one, so long as you keep it under the mandatory charms, since you live in a Muggle neighbourhood. I think you’ll find an owl a most useful thing.”
Harry thought of Rocky and was nearly blindsided by the longing for an owl of his own.
“I - yes, I would like to have an owl.”
“This way then,” McGonagall said, sweeping away back up the alleyway. The shop she entered was a pungent one, although not nauseating like the apothecary had been. It was lined with the most bizarre animals Harry had ever seen, and he couldn’t resist examining them all for a moment. As he did so, McGonagall walked up to the counter and started speaking to the man behind it in low tones.
After a moment, she beckoned to Harry, leading him towards the back, where cage after cage contained owls of every size and shape, from the tiniest of Scops-Owls to Screech Owls as long as Harry’s arm.
McGonagall led Harry to the far back.
“New arrivals,” she explained, as she indicated a row of cages. “Armadale told me they’ve managed to get a Snowy in. Ah, here she is.”
She was the most beautiful owl Harry had ever seen, staring at him with large amber eyes. Harry knew at once that he had to have her. His expression must have given him away because McGonagall smiled at him, genuinely, and then gestured to the shop assistant.
True to his word, Tom had two steaming plates of shepherd’s pie waiting for them back at the Leaky Cauldron when they returned. Hungry from the day, Harry dug in willingly, but barely tasted his food. His mind was spinning with what Ollivander had said. It hadn’t made any sense.
“Something on your mind, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall asked, setting down her fork.
“No Professor,” he replied automatically, then changed his mind. “Well, yes. I don’t understand what Mr. Ollivander was trying to tell me.”
“Ollivander enjoys confusing young children…and everyone else, for that matter. He cultivates an unsettling persona. I wouldn’t take it personally, if I were you, nor would I give it much thought.”
“Oh,” Harry said, not sure what to think about that. “So, he didn’t really mean anything when he told me it was strange that my wand picked me instead of my brother?”
“I’m sure he did mean something,” McGonagall replied. “But I’m equally sure it would have no impact on your life if you were to know. Dismiss it from your mind, Harry. It makes no difference.”
“All right,” Harry acquiesced, but the incident stayed in his mind for a long time to come.
After they finished eating, McGonagall helped him sort out his purchases. His books and school supplies went into his new wooden trunk, which was then locked. The lock was magical, of course, set to open to one key and one key only, which Harry placed on the same chain that his Gringotts key was on. This would give it the same properties as the key to his vault, if only because the vault key would drag his trunk key along with it.
Then McGonagall placed the snowy owl and her cage under a variant of the Disillusionment Charm, according to McGonagall herself, and also a silencing charm. These charms would ensure that the workers in St. Colonus’s overlooked the owl entirely.
“Don’t forget that this is a post owl,” McGonagall warned him seriously. “She’s not a pet. Treat her as you would a person, and you will be aptly rewarded. The cage is her home, not her prison.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry said, blinking. He glanced at the owl and felt a tendril of warmth for her.
Harry then accepted McGonagall’s offered arm, and they Disapparated back to the main office with a crack.
“There you are!” Michael said, having opened the door at the sound. “Where have you been, I - ”
McGonagall waved her wand discretely, and Michael went silent.
“We had a very informative meeting, Mr. Rider,” McGonagall said briskly. “Everything seems to be in order, so I shall take my leave of you both. Until September, Mr. Potter.”
“Bye Professor,” Harry said, still staring at Michael speculatively. His eyes were glazed, and he didn’t even blink when McGonagall vanished.
Harry snapped his fingers under Michael’s nose.
“Hey,” he said. “Wake up.”
“Oh, very good,” Michael said, evidently in response to McGonagall’s last sentence. “Excellent, I’ll have him at the train station on September the first. Thank you very much, Professor McGonagall. Have an excellent evening.”
“Er,” Harry said, trying not to laugh. “I’ll just…go up to the dorm, I think, Michael.”
Michael was silent.
“Right,” Harry muttered, and proceeded to drag his trunk to the door. As he closed it behind him, he heard Michael say, “Of course, Harry. That’s a good idea.”
Harry shook his head in bemusement.
Chapter Seven