FicWad

The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.


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Chapter 35: Christmas, Harry


Friday, December 21, 1990


Harry was sitting on a long and uncomfortable couch, facing the fireplace in the Longbottoms' living room. It was shortly after breakfast, and Dora and Sirius had convinced some friends of theirs to help take him shopping and sightseeing today.

Harry was skeptical that anyone would actually try to hurt him, but understood that the adults were very protective of him, and not just trying to be mean or strict. Unfortunately, their protectiveness meant that the most he had been out of the house since he returned from St. Mungo's was some illicit exploration of the woods near the Lovegoods' place. At least in Little Whinging he was allowed to walk around the neighborhood as much as he liked, even if the Dursleys were hoping he would get lost and never return. So Harry was very, very appreciative of the effort Sirius and Dora had gone to in convincing Mrs. Longbottom and Professor Dumbledore to let him go today.

The flames turned green. First Dora, then Sirius, stepped through, each giving him a warm hug. Sirius had brought a wooden box. "I have an early Christmas present for you, Harry. May we come up to your room and show it to you?"

"Sure!" He assumed Sirius mean the box, even though it wasn't wrapped. Maybe it opened and the present was inside? He had never gotten a real Christmas present before, and wasn't sure what to say. 'Don't act like Dudley' wasn't enough of a guideline to be of much help.

Harry's room in Longbottom Manor was very large, and much of it was taken up with furniture, books, pictures and the like which the Longbottoms had stuck in a former guest room for lack of anywhere better to put them. Mrs. Longbottom had found some photos of Harry's parents, some of them with him, or with their friends, and had put them around the room; she had never said how she got the photos, she had just gone and done it. Other than that, though, there was no decoration that was distinctly Harry's. It was still a long, long way from the cupboard under the stairs.

"Wow, Harry, I can see your floor!" exclaimed Dora upon entering. "That never happened in my room when I was your age. Of course you have less stuff than I did. Sorry, that sounds bad. But you'll get more clothes and stuff over time, I'm sure."

"We'll make sure of it, in fact," added Sirius, smiling and looking at a photo of about 20 people in it, which Mrs. Longbottom had told Harry was "The Order of the Phoenix", a group of people who had opposed Voldemort. She had pointed out Neville's parents in it, too, explaining what had happened to them as best as she was able.

"So, Harry, this is for you." Sirius held out the box for Harry, handle first, and he took it. "Put it down on the floor so I can show you what it does -- right there should do. Great. Now, this is something like a trunk, and you'll be able to take it with you to Hogwarts in the fall." He was already getting school supplies! "Have you ever seen a magic item that talked, or that you talked back to in order to make it work?" That sounded exciting—a talking trunk?

"You call out where you're going when you use the floo!"

"Anything else?"

"No." He was sure he'd remember it.

"Well, wizards make a lot of magic items that work that way. Probably more than they need to, since it doesn't always make things easier to use. I guess it's fair to say wizards just like it that way?" Sirius looked at Dora for confirmation; she nodded. "Anyway, this thing here looks like a box, but you can tell it to take different shapes, which I'll have you do in a bit. I got this for you in India, actually. The man who made it is a famous artist, or, at least, relatively famous, as wizards go, I guess. Anyway, his name is Gurunath Gavaskar, and he spent about three weeks customizing it just for you. I'm not sure what that means. I am absolutely sure it is safe, at least for you, but there's no actual way to prove it."

"Basically what Sirius means is that all Mrs. Longbottom or any of the staff at Hogwarts needs to know is that it's a trunk made by this guy, and they'll know what that means. But they might worry if they knew exactly how complicated it is, so you shouldn't go talking about it more than you need to. You'll see one of the reasons why in a little bit. Okay?"

Harry nodded. He wondered what was meant by 'complicated'.

"Right," continued Sirius. "So this is a very versatile, very smart, and hopefully very pretty, container. I wanted you to be able to store an awful lot of things in it, and like Dora said, you'll see a reason why in a moment. What it does not do is fly, or follow you around, or anything to help you if it gets lost. And it doesn't talk, it just responds to speech. Gavaskar has a thing against magic items that talk back to you. Let's make sure it knows where it is, shall we?"

Sirius addressed the box, which made Harry giggle, having never seen anyone do that before. "Trunk, I'd like you to meet Harold James Potter, that's Harry—my godson, and the Boy Who Lived. You're in his possession now. Treat him well." Sirius looked up. "Okay, Harry, let's have you tell it to look like a trunk."

"Er, hi. Could you please turn into a trunk?"

Harry's eyes went wide when it started to transform, and he jumped back. Eventually it took the shape of a flat-topped chest, the size of an average foot locker. Gone was the plain wood. The ends of the were decorated with inlaid peacocks displaying their tails, different shades of wood standing in for the colors. The top and front were an intricately carved forest scene, with flowers, vine-covered trees, and monkeys. Harry liked the monkeys, which had detailed and realistic fur, and were shown in motion, swinging and climbing. "Gavaskar said those were gray langurs, and that they are a repeated theme on this thing. That's all I know—I haven't seen this scene before." Harry decided he liked this artist.

Harry walked forward and lifted the lid. The inside was simply plain, polished wood. "If you were looking for it to be bigger in there, you should have told it what you wanted," explained Sirius. Bigger?

"Sirius, we should probably tell him about the mail before Remus and Hagrid get here."

"Did you put up the privacy charms?"

"Yep. So, the trunk is a present from Sirius. I sincerely hope that neither you nor I ever figure out how much he spent on it, but you now have a very valuable piece of artwork, which you should take good care of, although I understand it can defend itself exceedingly well." The trunk, apparently wanting to demonstrate, suddenly crackled with purple lightning, flickering over its surface, then disappearing, its point made. "There is some possibility it is hoping someone will try to steal it or break in. Don't encourage anyone to try, please. Anyway, the trunk already has a great deal of stuff in it, which I put there while I was at Hogwarts.

So. When I first started sending letters to you, I realized they weren't getting through unless I added extra details to the address like 'Longbottom Manor'. So I put a tracking spell on a letter—you know I'm good at finding things, right?" She grinned. "Anyway, it didn't go anywhere but up, so I got on my broom and flew around the school looking for it. Turns out there's this tower with a redirection spell on it, which Dumbledore set up to receive all of your mail. I don't know when he thought he was going to tell you about it, or if he even remembered it, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I found it.

Dumbledore is the sort of person who hides information from kids for, he thinks, their own good, and generally tries to control everyone around him. He's a good man, and he got that way because he was running the war against Voldemort, but he never really stopped fighting it. He makes more sense if you remember that. Usually.

Now, Sirius and I . . . we're not like that. I wanted to make sure you got your mail, and I didn't want Dumbledore to get his hands on it, either. So I asked Sirius to get me a bunch of trunks to store it in, that I could then bring to you when I came back over break. Instead he got you one very fancy trunk, hoping you could use it for other things as well." Harry laughed.

"So I took it up to that room and packed all of your mail in it, aside from some things that were destroyed by mice or had food or something in them that had gone bad. There are a few things you have to understand about your mail.

The first is that there is a lot of it. If you filled this room with it, it would be many feet deep. People have been sending you mail for the past nine years.

The second thing you should know is that I read some of it, for which I apologize, but I couldn't resist the temptation. I guess I'm only sort of sorry about that. Don't forgive me quite yet!" She said, laughing. "Anyway I divided it into three types. The first is just that I used a spell to sort out junk mail, which seemed to work okay, and I told the trunk you'd probably want to look at it last, if ever. The second group was everything else, except for a few dozen letters in the third group.

Uhh. That third group of letter . . . is not something you can ever let anyone else know about besides the people who sent them, okay? It would be extremely mean for you to do it, and while Sirius and I like playing pranks, we're serious about this—you absolutely must protect the privacy of the senders of these letters, as best as you are able. I told the trunk to do everything it could to protect them. I already know about them, and Sirius knows in general what's in them, but no one else besides the senders does. So if you want someone to talk to about them, do it with me, in private, okay?"

Harry nodded.

"Don't just nod. Was I actually clear?"

"I think so? What's in the letters?"

"The letters I sorted out are all from girls who, at least at the time they wrote them, thought they fancied you." Harry had no idea what to make of this. "You have to remember that you are the only celebrity your age among British wizards. So all the attention that, in the muggle world, might go elsewhere, gets concentrated on you. I didn't look at all your mail—so there might be others like these in the other stuff. I don't know.

We'll talk to you a lot about how to deal with girls, and try to send you off to Hogwarts as prepared as we can. My advice about these letters, specifically, is to remember that more people in the world will want your time and attention than you can possibly do anything for. You don't have to reply to these letters. You don't have to be anyone's girlfriend, and you probably shouldn't unless you would have liked them without their asking. Harry, you're really nice, so I'm sure you will want to make other people happy . . . be really, really careful. Don't let anyone think you will pay them more attention than you are sure you can give them, and are sure you want to give them—otherwise you might hurt their feelings.

I'm not saying you can't write back to these girls, or go say hi to them when you meet them in school. So long as you respect their privacy, they might like it even if you just said something like 'Hi, I'm Harry. I got a letter from you when I was eight. I'm only ten and I'm not interested in girls yet,'—assuming that's true—'but your letter was really sweet and it made me happy that people were thinking of me. And don't worry about me telling anyone else about it, because I won't.' Or, something like that. I think that's all I've got. Sirius?"

"Gavaskar said to leave him alone with it for a few minutes so it can get to know him. We should go downstairs and wait for the others. Harry, meet us downstairs in a few minutes?"

"It's not going to do anything like ask for his blood, is it?"

"Merlin, no. Gavaskar never does that—says it's pretentious. I don't know what it needs, though, Harry, so you'll have to figure it out on your own."

With that, they left, shutting the door behind them. Harry didn't like the comment about blood, and tried to think of what else it might do that was just as bad. He didn't want to keep anyone waiting, though, so he hurried along.

"Hi, trunk. I'm Harry Potter. I think you are supposed to do something now to get to know me." That seemed to do it—the trunk expanded towards him until it was square, and then grew upwards until it was about a foot taller than Harry. The designs morphed with it, trees growing in proportion or vanishing off the edge, other decorations appearing on the new surfaces. On the front, two trees now reached across at the top, framing a door, which now had a life-size monkey on it, sitting on a branch with leaves in the background.

The door swung open. Harry stepped up to look inside, leaning in. The back of the door and the back wall had similar forest or jungle scenes to the outside. Sticking his head in, lights turned on in the ceiling, which had an inlaid copper waterlily design, with light coming off of its three flowers. The right wall had writing on it, the left a framed picture. Harry stepped in to get a better look, and the door closed after him.

The picture was a wizard photo of a cheerful, bearded, presumably Indian man. Handwritten across it was "To Harry," at the top, and the artist's messy signature at the bottom in both roman script and one with characters he didn't recognize. The writing on the far wall was etched into the wood, with English at the top, and the other language below. Harry assumed they said the same thing.


'Closet of the Monkey God' Rosewood etc. and copper, 1990

Purchased by Sirius Black for his godson Harry Potter, Christmas 1990.

Customized by the artist for the Boy Who Lived, in the hopes that he may henceforth be the Boy Who Lived Well.

Gurunath Gavaskar


The "monkey god" reference struck Harry as most likely disrespectful to some religion; as with all aspects of muggle culture, wizards seemed to have a very dim grasp of muggle religion, yet cheerfully appropriated its symbolism when that suited them. Harry doubted that wizards elsewhere pulled this off much less badly than the British.

The door swung open again. Harry assumed that was good enough for now, and stepped out. "Um, you should probably look like a trunk when I'm not around." It dutifully shut its door and changed back.

He wasn't even sure what the thing was, but Harry's first real Christmas present was a nicer gift many times over than everything he had seen Dudley get over the years, combined. This was obvious already, even though Harry had only seen a few things it could do. Sirius had managed to find a practical gift that was also a toy—Harry was old enough to be impressed by this, and young enough to really appreciate it.

Dora, too, on top of the fact that she had rescued him from the Dursleys, had managed to get his mail—a room full of it, she said—out of Hogwarts without being noticed. He didn't really understand the process, but it was clearly not easy or risk-free.

Harry had spent the first few months in wizarding society being scared that it wasn't real, and would all go away. The only real exceptions were when Ron or Luna or Ginny were around, and he didn't have time to be anxious. By now it was clear that he really did have friends, some of whom were very powerful and wealthy, and who cared about him. He had even gotten past the point of worrying that they only liked him because of his parents or Voldemort.

Mostly, now Harry worried about the fact that there was absolutely no way he could ever repay their kindness.


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When he got downstairs, Sirius and Dora were talking to Mrs. Longbottom in the living room, going over plans for the day. They talked about a lot of things he had never heard of, and then Mrs. Longbottom spent a futile moment trying to use magic to control Harry's hair. "You're lucky Harry. You've got three of your father's friends to look out for you today. Remember that you are only ten, so you are entitled to ask lots of difficult questions about everything. This is something I expect you to do. I'm sorry this can't happen for you more often, but you know how much is at stake in keeping you safe."

Harry didn't, really, but that was okay for now. "I'll try to stay out of trouble."

Dora looked at Sirius. "Hagrid is running really late. Should we call for Remus anyway, and wait outside?"

"I think so. 'Remus Lupin'," he called into the floo.

Soon the four of them were standing outside in the snow. They were dressed for the cold weather, by wizarding standards at least, and protected by warming charms where their clothes

"Harry, have you ever met Rubeus Hagrid?" asked Remus. Harry shook his head. "Sirius! Hagrid would have come as quite a shock if you hadn't warned the boy."

"I hadn't though of that. We were busy planning."

Remus looked unsatisfied, but let it go. "Hagrid usually goes by his last name, much like your friend here, who I am told will hex me if I call her the wrong thing."

"I will!" She didn't sound very threatening, though.

"The thing Sirius should have told you is that Hagrid is a half-giant, so he is very big. I was worried that might alarm you. You needn't be afraid of him—he's an old friend, and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He was also the person who took you to the Dursleys, under Albus Dumbledore's orders. He might be somewhat emotional about that, and he probably feels guilty. I know I do." Remus went silent, looking at the sky.

"We invited Hagrid," explained Sirius, "because he was a member of the Order and a friend of your family, Dumbledore trusts him to keep you safe, we trust him to let us spoil you a little, he's excellent for making a path through crowds, and also he borrowed my motorcycle and is bringing it back."

"Is he riding it here?"

"We hope so."

"Why are you all looking up?"

"It's a flying motorcycle."

"Oh."

Remus, falling into his familiar role of 'the organized and responsible one at least compared to Sirius', looked like he wanted to get going sooner rather than later. "Let me try to reach him with my patronus. Harry, Dora, I'm about to send Hagrid a message using the patronus charm. The fact that you can send messages that way is something of a military secret, invented by Dumbledore and known only within the Order of the Phoenix, so far as we know. I'm sure he'd want you to learn it eventually, and I trust you to keep the secret . . . Actually, I have a better idea. Dora, can you produce a corporeal patronus?"

"Maybe if you called me 'Tonks' I could." She stuck out her tongue.

"If only it were always that simple! Very well, Tonks, would you please cast the patronus charm?"

"Yes, if you promise not to make too many jokes about it."

"Of course. Many witches and wizards have patronus animals they are embarrassed by, but you should be proud if you can cast it. I promise to be non-judgmental, although I might still laugh. I can't speak for Sirius, and Harry has nothing to compare it to."

"Um, that wasn't exactly it, but let's get this over with." She looked like she was concentrating on something, then smiled, then blushed. "Expecto Patronum!"

Her silver wolf shot from her wand, turned around, and sat looking at her.

Remus looked a little worried. "Oh. I see. I'll ask you about that later. I'm sure Sirius is struggling to make a joke out of it as we speak, but I certainly won't make fun of you for it. Very impressive, by the way." He smiled, warmly, almost sympathetically. "What I want you to do is talk to it—tell it to go to Hagrid and ask him where he is and when he'll get here." She did this, and it took off in a streak of light.

It returned two minutes later with Hagrid's reply, which it repeated in Hagrid's voice. "Jes' takin' her out fer one las' spin. I'll head right over." A few minutes later, the sound of the motorcycle heralded its arrival over the trees. Hagrid circled, and seeing nowhere better to land, simply plowed into the snow on the lawn in front of them.

Harry applauded, which turned out to be the right thing to do.

"Harry! C'mere. Let me take a look at yer. Jes' like James, jes' like James. He'd be so happy. An' Lily's eyes, too. You know, Harry, I was the one who dropped you off at yer relatives, an' I'm right sorry fer that. None of us knew they were . . . they were . . ."

"Nasty, abusive, wizard-hating arses who deserve whatever happens to them once the Ministry gets tired of protecting them?" suggested Sirius.

"Somethin' like that. Hopefully we can make up fer some o' that today. Got the portkeys righ' here. Sirius, she's all yours agin." He patted the bike. "I'll miss 'er, but 's worth it jus' to have you back wi' us. We didn' know, you know . . ."

"It's okay Hagrid. The only ones I'm mad at are the Death Eaters." He walked over and inspected the bike. "You kept up with the maintenance—thank you! So, Harry, have you ever traveled by Portkey before?"

Sirius explained that Hagrid was too big for the floo or a broomstick, which is why he had loaned him the motorcycle to get Harry to safety. Dumbledore had provided several portkeys for them today, including one back to Hogwarts so that Hagrid could get home.

Hagrid had pulled a ring of rope out of his pocket, which had a tag hanging off of it saying "Diagon Alley".

"Before we go," said Remus, holding up his hand, "while I'm sure Sirius has explained what's happening today,"—he glared at Sirius, who probably had done no such thing—"there's still the matter of your scar. We'll be noticeable enough with Hagrid and Sirius, but maybe we can get everyone to pay attention to them while ignoring you. Bearing that in mind, I have brought along a very sophisticated magical device which will conceal your scar somewhat." He reached into his pocket, pulling forth a small black lump. A wave of his wand caused it to enlarge, springing into the shape of a pointy, floppy-brimmed wizard hat, which he placed on Harry's head. "Hm. I wanted it to be a little big for you, but that's a little much. Here . . ." Remus transfigured it into place. "As I said, very sophisticated, although I lied about the magical part. It's just a hat." Harry laughed. "If it works as a disguise, though, you may keep it and use it again."

"You know, Remus" said Sirius, "you're going out with a famous former prisoner, the Boy Who Lived, and Britain's only half-giant and only metamorphmagus. Even if people knew about you, you'd still be the normal one!" Everyone laughed, but Remus had a long-suffering look that Harry interpreted as 'if only that were true.'


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Harry decided he liked portkey travel much better than apparation, but less than the floo. They had arrived in a side-alley selected by Dumbledore for being out of the flow of pedestrians. It was odd having everyone with him—it was the complete opposite of going places with the Dursleys.

Harry had been very curious to see a real street wholly within wizarding society. His idea of a normal wizard, or at least his best guess at one, was some combination of Neville, Ron, and Dora's mother, but it was awfully hard to get a handle on with so little data. A quick glance around, after the initial awe of stepping out into the Alley itself, was enough to reassure Harry that, while magical people had very different fashion senses than muggles, witches with vultures on their hats were not an everyday thing.

The Alley was just as amazing as he had hoped. Dora and the three adults spread out around him, Tonks and Hagrid a little ways in front of them, Sirius holding his hand, and Remus hanging behind. The evidence was subtle, but Harry got the feeling that the theoretical wizards who wanted to hurt him would have a very hard time of it, if they tried anything. He had never seen wizards fight, or really anything close to it, and was curious to know what it looked like. Just not enough to want to get attacked by Death Eaters.

Everyone seemed to agree that they should start at the bank, explaining that Harry should learn how it worked, and that his family had left him money that he ought to go check on. Harry had point blank asked how much, to which Sirius responded not only by saying he didn't know, but with a complicated explanation of wills, trusts, and interest versus principal, only being cut off by their actual arrival at Gringotts.

The goblins were odd-looking, and their expressions struck him as a little predatory and maybe even mocking, but not actually hostile. Sirius had produced Harry's vault key, obtained from Mrs. Longbottom. The two of them followed Griphook the goblin off to a side door while the other three took care of their own business at Gringotts.

It wasn't a broomstick, but the vault ride was, by far and away, more fun than the floo, portkeys, or apparation, and he had said so, after some undignified screaming along the way. The goblin had actually grinned.

When Griphook opened the vault door, Harry had simply stared at the heaps of coins inside. He knew there were 17 sickles in a galleon and 29 knuts in a sickle, but not what that meant in practical terms; he didn't really expect the wizarding economy to have much to do with the muggle one. Sirius had looked mildly surprised, and started asking Griphook some questions while Harry walked around inside the vault.

"How much is in there?"

"About three hundred fifteen thousand galleons."

"And this is . . . a trust vault?"

"It would be available to all Potter children, were there more, yes. The trust is set up to get a percentage of income from certain investments associated with the main vault. There are other terms, of course, but that's how it normally works. For the past few generations, the Potters have married young, but had only one child per generation. So the amount that was spent earlier this summer was the most anyone has withdrawn in the past century."

"Ah. That makes sense. Alright, Harry—I found this around the house and enchanted it—we'll try to get you a real pouch later today." Sirius threw Harry a bag, which he snatched out of the air. "Nice. Hmm. May I come in?"

"Sure."

"I want to try something—I apologize if this offends your sense of decorum, Griphook, but I have to know something." He picked up a handful of knuts. "Catch!" He started tossing them to Harry, who caught each one, even as Sirius started tossing them faster and further out from Harry's body. None of the knuts got by; Sirius was delighted. "You have your father's reflexes, Harry. He'd be overjoyed to have watched that just now. I miss him.

Sorry, Harry, I shouldn't stand here moping today. I want you to fill that bag with galleons, then put a handful of sickles and knuts on the top so you have change—we'll change a bunch of it for pounds before we leave the bank, too." He watched Harry's face for a while as the boy scooped up handfuls of coins, definitely taking his time, and discovering along the way that gold was in fact very heavy. Eventually the bag looked mostly full.

"Now, we have been given very few instructions by your guardian, because I convinced her that the four of us would keep each other in line or something. I'm sure she was swayed by my overwhelming charisma. Anyway, the one strict rule is that you may only buy presents for a small list of people—her and your friends your own age—and spend no more than six Galleons total on those gifts, which should be plenty. The rest of us think that's a good rule too. Don't worry about the rest of us this year—you'll have plenty of time in the future for that. Okay? As for the rest, I don't expect you to spend it all. So you ought to have some left to stash away in your trunk when we're done."


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Their next stop was not somewhere Harry had expected to go that day: Ollivander's wand shop. Tonks had gone in before them all and made sure it was empty; they followed her while Hagrid remained outside, presumably to look intimidating to people who didn't know him well. Sirius said almost no one bought wands at Christmas, but that Ollivander did a brisk business then, selling unnecessary accessories to wizards looking for gifts for people they didn't know very well.

Ollivander's was the first real wizarding business Harry had ever been in, and the floor-to-ceiling piles of boxes were more than adequate at living up to his imagination.


It was about thirty seconds of waiting patiently before an old man came out from the back. "Hmmm. Hello there, Miss Tonks, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin. And who might this be?"

"Go ahead, take off the hat," said Sirius.

"Oh. Well then. I was wondering when I would see you in here. You are in here for a wand, aren't you?"

"If he's not too young, yes."

"Well, that's a very individual thing. Personally I think most children could at least be matched with the right wand at a very young age." Ollivander sent a flying tape measure at Harry, who treated it like some strange animal he was trying not to spook. "Of course, no one listens to me besides a few old families who know better and want an advantage for their own children. Excellent proof that I'm right, but I get no word-of-mouth advertising out of it. Alright!"

He summoned the tape measure back, its work evidently finished. Harry had no idea what it did, since Ollivander never seemed to look at it.

"My way would, of course, lead to pressure on the Ministry to decouple their Trace from the usual matriculation dates for magical schools, which I'm sure they'd resist because of the expense. Not my problem, nor is it yours. In any case you really will be free of the Trace until you head off to Hogwarts, so I expect you to make good use of that time, young man!

Right. Enough of that. Let's get you started!"

He pulled a wand box off the nearest shelf, seemingly at random.

"Go on, give it a wave!"

Nothing happened.

"Hm. This?"

A loud bang.

"Nope, I guess not, but that's an excellent sign . . ."

An hour later Harry walked out of the shop with a holly and phoenix feather wand. Sirius and Remus had looked shaken by this, but Dora hadn't looked surprised, and Ollivander had been positively excited, giving him a lecture about how he should Do Great Things with his new wand. Harry was not sure why there was any significance to who else had a wand core with feathers taken from the same phoenix at the same time. Given that only Sirius and Remus thought anything was wrong, Harry decided that sometimes wizards were superstitious, just like muggles. Of course, it didn't make the two of them look any happier when Harry responded to the Do Great Things lecture with "I'll do my best, sir!"


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The rest of the morning was spent wandering up and down the alley, more with the goal of going in everywhere and letting Harry see it than actually shopping, although they did buy a few things, including presents for Harry's friends. Sirius insisted on getting Harry a decent money pouch and a set of robes 'to wear to Christmas dinner, but that he'll probably grow out of'. Harry didn't object when told to wait until after Christmas to get anything new for himself.

Around noon it was time for lunch. They saw Hagrid off, after he handed over several sets of portkeys for the afternoon. Hagrid was too conspicuous to include him for lunch or a trip into muggle London, and Dumbledore's main concern had been for the Diagon Alley portion, where Harry was more likely to be recognized.

Getting ready for the next leg of the trip involved casting quite a few spells to make their clothing less noticeable to muggles. Harry thought it would be easier to just wear muggle clothing, but kept his mouth shut. It later became clear that neither Sirius nor Tonks owned much in the way of muggle clothing, a situation they would partially rectify that afternoon.

Dumbledore had wanted them to eat lunch in a muggle restaurant where they would be less likely to be recognized, and had provided several suggestions. Sirius had openly wondered whether Dumbledore had really spent enough time eating out to have opinions on these places, or whether he had run around searching at the last moment just to impress everyone. In either case, the old wizard succeeded at remaining mysterious, and the little Indian place they selected had good food and a booth suitable for privacy charms.

"So, Sirius," Remus began, after watching Tonks cast every single one of the seventeen privacy charms he had suggested, plus two more he hadn't. "Who all have you told about my condition besides, er, Tonks, here."

"What? Me? No one. It wasn't me, I swear!" Sirius was grinning.

Remus turned to Tonks, who had contrived to sit next to him, and across from Harry, leaving the two adults on the outside in case of emergency. "Um, Tonks, as far as I can tell, you have been very understanding, but there are a lot of wizards who aren't, and I would—"

"—it's okay Remus. I get it. I was only casual about it because I thought everyone here knew. Um, I told Harry, but that's it."

"And I didn't tell anyone! I can keep secrets. Don't get mad at Dora. She was just explaining why I couldn't stay with you after she took me from the Dursleys."

"How . . . I'm confused."

"She said you were her first choice because you knew my parents, but that you couldn't get custody because you're a werewolf."

Sirius raised his eyebrows, watching Remus' face.

"So you knew about it well before Sirius got out of prison. I admit, I'm puzzled. Please explain."

"Nope!"

"Remus, she's like that all the time. Knows everything about everyone, won't explain how. I'd bet galleons to knuts she knows way more about you than she lets on, and if you ask her how she knows, she'll try to use it as leverage to get you to take an occlumency course."

"He's right, Remus. You'd end the conversation deeply disturbed. I'm a horrible stalker."

"Come now, Dora, I rather think you are an excellent one!"

She stuck out her tongue. "Thanks, Sirius. I think. It really would make my life easier if all my friends would learn occlumency, though. Speaking of which, I know it provides resistance to veritaserum and the imperius curse, but does it work on love potions? I've never heard. But it would be awfully convenient if it did."

"Way to change the topic, there, Dora! My textbook never said anything about other potions either. I'll ask my tutor."

"Oh, come on, we already agreed to talk about it. Anyway. See, Harry, how to put this . . . I've overheard a lot of girls talking. And I think it is very likely that someone is going to try to slip you a love potion while you're at Hogwarts. At least once."

"Probably multiple times!" added Sirius.

It was bad enough that there were people out there who supposedly wanted to kill him. They wanted him to fall in love with them, too? "But, why?"

Sirius whistled. "That's kind of a tough question. There's no single answer."

"But," continued Tonks, "it has a lot to do with the fact that you're a celebrity. They probably won't try it your first few years, but I really wouldn't want to place any bets on that. Especially if it's Slytherin girls doing it as a prank."

"Now, as pranks go, it's not so bad," Sirius explained, "because they're probably not going to want to keep dosing you with it. Love potions don't last more than a day or so, but if you can keep dosing someone with it, you can maintain the effect."

"But someone who has, well . . . other plans for you, they'll try to keep doing it . . ."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sirius, Remus, and Tonks had tried to cram a great deal of advice into Harry in one go. Harry wasn't sure he'd ever be able to apply any of it when the time came, but he appreciated the effort. He was, in fact, pretty sure they would keep trying to give him advice for the rest of his life, so he wasn't worried about remembering it in the immediate future.

By itself, either the morning in Diagon Alley or the trip into London would have made for one of the best days Harry had ever had. Together, they were wonderful but exhausting. He came home with two shopping bags full of, among other things, muggle clothes. Mrs. Longbottom had specifically asked Sirius to make sure he got some, as he had never owned much in the first place. Harry, then, returned to his room eager to see what his trunk would do with all of it.

The trunk obliged him, becoming in turn a dresser, a cabinet, and a small chest, depending on the object he asked to put in it. It wasn't wholly practical, but it seemed like it was designed to work that way, and he ought to give it the chance to fulfill its purpose. Also it was fun to watch.

All attempts to think of it as something other than an intelligent entity failed once Harry had finished putting things in it. He had asked it to return to a trunk, but instead of the previous jungle scene, there was a similar one with a foot-wide copper disc in the center. This grew upward, liquidly, into a statue of one of the monkeys from the carvings. It grinned at Harry, as best as a monkey could, and waved.

"Awesome! So are you supposed to be, like, the trunk itself?"

The monkey looked confused, frowned, shrugged, and scratched its head.

"Sorry. Are you the brains of the trunk?"

The monkey frowned thoughtfully, cocked its head to one side, made a weighing back and forth gesture with its paws, and finally shook its head 'no'.

"Okay. So, something for me to talk to, then?"

It smiled and clapped its paws, bringing them together without touching to avoid making noise.

"Cool! That's helpful. I mean, I like you already, but it's weird talking to furniture."

The monkey nodded, as if in understanding.

"So, can you be anything other than a monkey?"

It grew two extra arms, and looked at him hopefully.

Harry giggled. "That's okay, I think I like monkeys. You can have as many arms as you like."

After some experimentation, it decided that proper monkeys should have no fewer than six arms, although twelve was probably too many.

"So, are you also supposed to guard the trunk?"

Its paws were suddenly holding various bladed weapons, which it waved around dramatically with a very serious and determined expression on its face. Its eyes glowed purple, it crouched down, it demonstrated that it could pick up at least one foot at the time in order to achieve some ridiculous poses. Harry had the feeling it was trying to entertain him—which it was being quite successful at—and that if actually threatened, any fight would be settled with a quick stab or bolt of purple lightning.

"Was one of the things Mr. Gavaskar did—when he set things up for me specifically, I mean—was one of those to change your personality to one he thought I'd like?"

The monkey nodded happily, retracted its weapons, and replaced them with various jingly percussion instruments Harry didn't recognize.

"So were you very serious at first, before he changed you?"

It looked sad, and nodded.

"Well, I like the way you are now. I think I had better get to sleep, though."

The monkey sat down cross-legged, then stretched and wiggled its toes.

"Um, I don't want to disturb you, but you have my pajamas in there."

Harry couldn't honestly say this method of storing things was efficient. It was, however, awesome.





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Author's notes:

I have at long last decided that my next few chapters are the way I want them and in the order I want them! It has gotten kind of ridiculous, since after posting this I still have almost 60k words between now and mid-January, story time.

Over the holidays in the story I will not be going day-by-day and jumping from character-to-character, but will instead do one plot line, then the other. For some reason I had convinced myself readers wouldn't tolerate that, which was silly, since I probably had it backwards.

Once again, I remind everyone using alerts to read these that I edit quite a bit after uploading, so waiting half an hour or so would probably give you a better experience. Would that I were so popular...