July 24, 1991
England, Little Whinging
In one week, I—or rather, this body—would turn eleven. The very eleven that had changed Harry Potter's life and 'returned' the Boy-Who-Lived to the magical world. Yeeeah... I had started changing my surroundings three years ago, and I thought it was time to finally put my thoughts in order, form a clear 'mask', settle on a line of behavior, and refresh my memory a little through meditation and by rereading the notes I'd made when I first arrived here. Day 'X' was getting closer and closer. It had been an emotional day for Harry, and I knew quite a lot about it.
Still, I never understood why the hell that hairy giant had come for Harry. As far as I understood, the man worked at the school as a groundskeeper. A groundskeeper! An unbelievably huge shaggy man wandering around the Muggle world, where supposedly all the wondrous wonders were being kept secret.
Snape-sensei had mentioned that young wizards who didn't know they were magical and lived among Muggles were visited by Hogwarts teachers and Heads of House. I'd finally learned the name of my future school, along with a great many local place names, first names, and surnames. At first, all of that had gone 'with a creak'. Three years in an English school with Mr. White drumming nearly the same material into your head could make anyone into a top student, if only so they'd leave you alone.
Back to the school of magic and wizardry. Adult wizards explained everything to the parents of Muggle-born students, delivered the invitation letter, and accompanied the parents and child to the magical street where everything needed for school could be bought. And really, of course they did. Imagine some unknown person appearing at your door, some bizarre weirdo, and saying they were taking your underage child away to a closed boarding school until next summer. Dudley and Piers had enrolled at Smeltings Academy, which was also a boarding school like many in England, but students could go home on weekends and holidays, and it was located in our county of Surrey rather than somewhere unknown in Scotland. I had a suspicion the teachers weren't sent along for no reason, but also to 'adjust' the parents' heads a little. Then Mum and Dad could smile happily while sending their precious child off to who-knew-where with who-knew-whom.
Last year, while staying with Snape-sensei, I found a book about protecting the mind and reading thoughts. He let me take it back to Little Whinging along with another dozen books, just like in the first year, so I read it from cover to cover. Especially because Sensei had mentioned that the Hogwarts Headmaster was one of the same kind of 'readers' as he was.
Ino and Kurama had both taught me mental defenses, and shinobi had their own secrets, but information was never useless. And this information reassured me somewhat. I learned that without a wand and a special spell, wizards could read only the 'first layer'. In theory, they wouldn't be able to look through a 'mask'. And apparently they knew nothing at all about stream consciousness and splitting thought processes, which I found amusing. How did they think, then? In one solid block? Or only about one thing at a time? How much time did they waste processing information? Though something told me Snape-sensei had also learned to divide his thought streams somehow, perhaps intuitively.
To read thoughts or plant suggestions, a wizard had to look directly into the 'patient's' eyes. And I wasn't planning to stare wizards in the eyes anyway, especially after Sensei's yearly 'treatment' of Piers and his demonstration of similar talents. At least there was some comfort in the fact that not many wizards possessed such a gift. Of course, the rest had spells for suggestion and suppressing the will, so that wasn't exactly great either.
With surface Legilimency, nobody was digging through your past, horrifying secrets, or anything like that. At most, those 'readers' could tell whether you were lying and catch some thoughts turning over on the surface. A skilled physiognomist could understand that without wands or spells. I hadn't lost those skills myself, and as it turned out, people in both my old world and this one felt the same emotions, expressed in much the same ways, and those emotions could be read from their faces just as I was used to doing.
Legilimens were truly dangerous when they used a wand and special 'deep-reading' spells. They could leave even an adult wizard as a mindless 'vegetable' if the target resisted somebody digging through their memories. So I was very glad that all those 'mencies' were completely forbidden on children under fifteen. The restriction existed because it was dangerous not only to the child but also to the 'mind reader': uncontrolled raw magic or 'magical backlash' could smash them right between the eyes badly enough to teach them a lesson. Naturally, all of that applied only to wizards. Muggles and Squibs could be influenced almost without restrictions. So my theories about the minds of our town's residents having been washed were reinforced by the literature Snape-sensei had given me.
"Harry, are you asleep?" Dudley's voice came from the stairs above my cupboard.
Well, look at that. My brother had crept down so quietly that not a single stair squeaked. Full marks for stealth infiltration. According to my internal clock, it was only about half past five in the morning. However you looked at it, Big D normally loved crushing a pillow for as long as possible. Aunt Petunia wasn't even up yet to make breakfast. We were on holiday, but today was Wednesday—a working day for Uncle Vernon.
"No, I'm awake," I called back, and a couple of seconds later my brother's fair-haired head appeared in the cupboard doorway. "Why are you up so early? There's another hour before we usually get up."
"Couldn't sleep," Dudley grumbled and climbed in with me. "It's really soon now, isn't it?.."
Yeah. Heavy subject.
In September, each of us would leave for his own school, and I still didn't know whether Snape-sensei would take me to stay with him for August this year. When I'd visited him the previous two years, we had spent almost the entire month traveling in search of ingredients. It had been great. I came home looking just like Dudley and Piers after 'camp'—tanned and very pleased with life. Of course, most of the time we simply gathered various herbs and minerals, but as usual I was lucky, and from time to time I found some rare piece of rubbish.
It reminded me a little of traveling with Jiraiya, except we lived in a tent that looked a hundred times smaller from the outside than it was inside. It contained practically everything we needed for life: books, food, and long conversations with Sensei about the magical world. Snape-sensei only refused to let me read the newspapers his owl brought to Cokeworth. Out in the field, though, nobody disturbed us. He made me promise not to tell anyone that he'd taught me anything. He also said that once we were at school, I would get no special treatment from him. That was obvious anyway. Sensei had principles. Last August, he hadn't repeated the invitation for this year, so I had no idea whether I'd go to him, whether Dudley and I would finally attend a real summer camp together for the first time, or whether we'd stay here entirely. It was, after all, the last summer before 'adult life', and Aunt Petunia's love had become especially intense because of that. You couldn't walk past her without being squeezed and fussed over, and sometimes she even burst into tears.
"Yeah. Soon, Big D..." I confirmed.
Over three years, I'd grown used to Dudley and the Dursley family. I'd adapted to this life and to this body, which, incidentally, wasn't badly built anymore and had become physically well developed. And now my task would become a long-term mission: study in the magical world. As I understood it, Hogwarts students were allowed home only for the two months of summer holiday. And considering that Harry had always been sent off to stay 'with friends' who made enemies unnecessary...
My cousin and I had talked about it many times. We'd even become real blood brothers, swearing in blood that we wouldn't abandon or forget each other.
* * *
That morning, just as the whole family began breakfast, the postman's bell rang, and Dudley ran to collect the letters and newspapers pushed through the mail slot. Usually we received bills and advertising leaflets, especially about schools. Starting around Christmas, we'd been buried in options and terms from different schools not only in our county but in neighboring ones too. There were also messages from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge. She bred dogs and often traveled with them to shows, sending postcards from all the cities she visited.
"Harry..." My brother's voice trembled because he was holding a thick envelope made of heavy parchment paper, the same kind Aunt Petunia used to wrap our school lunches, only hers was darker. Ink was easier to write on this paper than on thinner paper, and it was sold in large rolls. We'd bought one recently.
"'Mr. Potter, Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, cupboard under the stairs,'" Dudley read aloud.
"From Hogwarts?" Aunt Petunia took the letter, turned the envelope over in her hands, then gave it to me. "Yes. The seal, the crest. Lily got one just like it. Except hers wasn't sent through the post. It was delivered by hand."
Exactly what I'd been thinking.
Just in case, I opened the envelope behind the house while wearing gardening gloves and a gauze mask, and I even sprayed the thick paper with a 'universal potion neutralizer' used to treat cauldrons before washing and cleaning. As far as I understood, it destroyed magical bonds between potion components. You couldn't safely stick your hands into every dirty cauldron containing unknown residue. Yet for some reason, potioneers who possessed such a substance never thought to use it for anything beyond its intended purpose, while most wizards had never even heard of it because they didn't brew anything more dangerous than a Pepperup Potion. When I asked Snape-sensei about it, he thought for a while and said that protective and diagnostic charms were much faster and more convenient when dealing with parcels and letters. My idea was useful mostly for Squibs. But who would bother cursing a Squib when they were already deprived of magic? Still, he poured some neutralizer off for me. Now it came in handy.
"So, was there something nasty on it?" Dudley asked from a safe distance while watching me work. I shrugged.
A neutralizer was a 'neutralizer', not a 'revealer'. Combat experience simply told me it was better to be overcautious than undercautious. And I'd read more than enough in Sensei's books about powders in envelopes and letters soaked with potions. Wizards could be clever and treacherous. With the unhealthy excitement surrounding the 'Chosen One' and the general 'enchantment' of our town, caution wouldn't hurt.
"Is it okay that I touched the letter?" my brother grumbled. "Mum did too."
"Yes. If there was anything on it, it would most likely be inside. Someone has to carry it, whether that's a postman, owl, elf, or another person. If something was placed on the outside of the envelope, there'd be a good chance the message would never reach the intended recipient. That's why the envelopes are always thick and sealed. You have to open them with some force, and that gives anything inside a chance to spill onto you," I explained what I'd learned from the books.
"Got it. So what does it say?" Dudley asked with a heavy sigh.
The green ink used for the letter survived the neutralizer. Parchment paper really was more convenient than ordinary paper in that respect. There were two sheets inside. One carried the crest, the name of the school, and a list of Headmaster Beard-Bells Dumbledore's titles, along with the invitation to attend, signed by Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. The second was an attachment listing books, clothing, and equipment. I quickly read the invitation and the list of things I needed to buy for school.
"They're inviting me to Hogwarts. Classes begin on the first of September, and before my birthday they want me to send them an owl," I told my brother.
"And where are you supposed to get an owl?" he snorted.
"How should I know?" I shrugged.
Apparently this was the first trial for the 'Chosen One'. I knew what they meant by 'We await your owl', of course. But how was Harry Potter—supposedly shut away among Muggles, never having had any dealings with the magical world and never having seen a wand in his life—supposed to know that he had to write a letter confirming his acceptance and use owl post? He was somehow also expected to have an actual postal owl.
I could practically hear the cheerful jingle of little bells in someone's elderly beard behind all of it.