"We've been over this before 'Squeak," said the man behind the counter, looking up from paperback book he was reading. "You're a hermetic mage."
As if to accentuate the point, the man picked up a ballpoint pen in the cup next to the register and cocked his arm back, gently flicking it the small boy in a lazy arc.
Instantly, Harry's right hand rose from his side, fingers pointed upwards and palm facing outwards ever so slightly, until it was in front of his chest at shoulder level, in the abhaya mudra. "Creo vim," he intoned calmly, quickly drawing energy from the Astral plane to charge his mind and body, giving his words and gestures power through intention.
There was a musical chime, and the pen was stopped mid-flight a few inches from Harry's face, bouncing backwards and crashing to the floor as though it had struck an invisible solid wall. Harry's brow furrowed as a wave of weariness flowed over him for a moment, but it passed and he remained unaffected, as it was a shield spell he was familiar with.
"Jason," said the small boy with a smile as he picked the pen off the floor and tossed it back to the man behind the counter. "How's business going?"
"It's been going," said the man, before calling out, "Losers! 'Squeak's here!"
In the back of the shop, behind a partition wall, there was the sound of chairs scraping against the floor, followed by the sound of a chair toppling. Then, six adults came rushing out of the back room, swarming towards the small boy, until the first of them, a pretty, slim woman with strawberry blonde hair and pale skin, wrapped him in a warm, worried embrace before the others piled on in what became a massive group hug.
After a long moment, the adults slowly began to release the small boy, and only then did the woman holding him closest pull back, though her hands remained on his shoulders. "Where've ye bin 'Squeak? we've woriat boak abit ye," she said in a soft, gentle lilt. As always, Harry found her Ayrshire-influenced inflection soothing.
"Thanks Jack," said the boy. "Aunt and uncle dragged me away."
"Why?" asked an older, bearded man in a suit. "It's not as though they would take you along for a vacation; they've left you locked outside when they went away before."
"I started getting letters, 'Fessor," said the small boy. "At first, it just the one, addressed to, and I quote, 'The Cupboard Under the Stairs'. After receiving that letter, which they destroyed, they moved me into Dudley's second bedroom, the smaller one, but the letters just kept coming, until they were pouring out of the fireplace. That that point, they were terrified by the 'freakishness' and decided it might be better at a hotel."
"Something tells me that didn't work out how they had hoped," said a thin, bespectacled man in shirtsleeves with a smile.
"You'd be right," said the boy. "The letters kept coming, even at the hotel, so they dragged me off to an island off the coast." He paused, looking around the shop. "I think we should go into the back before I keep going; don't know if somebody might walk in during the middle of the story, and the story might get weird."
There were nods all around, and the group filtered into the back room of the shop, where they were joined by the shopkeeper. Looking at the table at the center of the room, Harry noted the miniatures on the hand-drawn map and gave the youngest of the group besides himself, a raven-haired woman in her early twenties with short, bobbed hair and slim face, a miffed look. "Shadowrun, Romy? I thought Wednesdays was board games."
The noirette looked ashamed. "You weren't here, so we thought we'd try playing a scenario more extreme than we'd comfortable with you playing," she said apologetically.
"What's the run?" Harry asked.
"Rescuing a suit's kidnapped daughter from a bun-rack-koo parlor," said a stocky man in jeans and a printed T-shirt advertising Metallica.
"It's pronounced bunraku, Shaun," corrected the beautiful, if generically so, woman, tossing her long brown hair. "I bet you pronounce sake 'sack-key' too."
"Well, I'm sorry," said the T-shirted man heatedly.
"Never mind that," said the brunette, hugging Harry warmly. "Do you want to play?"
"No," said the boy after another quick glance at the table. "Looks like you've already done the legwork, so it'd be unfair for me to just crash the game.
"Anyways, where was I?"
"You got dragged off the an island off the coast," prompted the bespectacled man as he turned a chair so he could sit facing the boy before taking a seat in it.
"Right," said the boy, as his audience settled in to listen to his tale. "So this really big guy, so big he could be a troll, but no tusks or calcium deposits or thick skin, he breaks down the front door, and he hand delivers to deliver a cake and a letter. Bent the barrel of the shotgun my uncle tried to shoot him with, too.
"So, apparently, a boarding school for witches and wizards had been sending me letters, and he was sent to deliver it when nobody answered them. Long story short, there's a magical shopping district in the middle of downtown London, I found out I've quite an inheritance that nobody told me about before, and I bought supplies the magic boarding school. Apparently, because I didn't answer send a response in time of the deadline, I'm now going to magical boarding school, which I guess can't be worse than my aunt and uncle's.
"Anyways, the trog who drags me to Diagon Alley, the shopping district, gets sick after going to the bank, because they use vaults for money storage, and their money system is in coinage only, so people need big vaults if they're wealthy, and the vaults are apparently all underground and the only way to get to them is through riding minecarts, which is as bad as it sounds, and the trog decides to go get drink. In the meantime, I'm supposed to buy my school uniform, which are robes like a barrister would wear in court, and I've got nothing to put them in, not to mention, he's left me with a big, heavy bag of gold coins, because he has no idea how much exactly I'll actually need for the school supplies, and I know this because I asked him.
"So, of course I don't buy my uniform first; I go and buy something to carry my purchases in first, as well as a magic coin purse. Then I go to the bookstore, because that's right by the luggage shop. At the bookshop, I find all these book written about me, so I decide to stop and read a few, because apparently, I'm very famous, to a point where calling me by name gets me swarmed by random strangers."
"How can you be famous and not know it?" asked the noirette curiously. "Was it a government cover up?"
"Maybe," said Harry with a shrug. "Might be because the mundanes just don't about it. From what I could gather, the magical people of Britain were embroiled in a civil war, and their big bad evil guy like at the end of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign was killing loads of people, but when he tried to kill me, something happened and he couldn't; they say he was using something called the 'Killing Curse' on his murder spree, and because it kills without fail and I survived, witches and wizards call me 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' and attribute his defeat to me."
"That's glaikit," said the strawberry blonde, rubbing the sleeve tattoos on her arms. "Ye cooldn't hae bin mair than tois, thee years auld? Whit coods ye hae dain, wee'd oan heem?"
"I know, right?" the boy agreed. "And apparently, about eighteen months.
"They're still really scared of that big bad evil guy, to a point where they only call him 'You-Know-Who' and 'He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named', which is really confusing for a person new to their magical society. I didn't have time to read that much, because a girl who's also going to the same magical boarding school as I am interrupted me, but I did manage to buy a copy of every book in the shop."
"That's smart," said the man in the shirtsleeves, rubbing his hands together in excitement at the mention of books. "Let's see them."
"Can't right now," said the boy, shaking his head. "I didn't know how many books it would be, so I had them charge my vault and deliver the books there, instead of standing around and waiting for them to get the books while I count out God knows how many coins.
"So, I get most of my other school supplies before I head back to get my uniform, and that trog is there, just crying his eyes out because he thought I had went missing, even though he was the one who left me unattended to go have a drink in the middle of the day. Anyways, buy my robes and have a nice long chat with the girl I met the bookstore; she's agreeable to meeting before we head off to school. She's apparently new to magic."
"Might not be a bad idea to sit down with her and compare notes," said the man in the shirtsleeves. "I mean, before today, none of us knew there was a secret society of wizards."
"Yeah, that sounds smart Martin," said the boy, making a mental note of it. "The last thing I have to buy for school is a wand. Go into this old, dusty shop that looks like it should be condemned, and this old man who looks like he might be a paedophile gets really close and starts measuring me all over before sticking wands into my hands and telling me to wave it around, then grabbing them before I get a chance. It takes a really long time, and I end up going through the entire inventory of the shop, but the wandmaker won't sell me any of the wands because it's important for every witch and wizard to have the right wand for them. Told me I could leave a deposit and he'd make me a wand and send it to the boarding school, where it'd be waiting for me."
"That could be a scam," said bespectacled man, rubbing his beard. "Might not be a bad one."
"Could be, but at that point, I just wanted to get out of there," said the boy. "Story's running kind of long now, so, to get to the point, trog buys me this owl as a birthday present (apparently, wizards use owls to deliver the post), gives me a train ticket to get to boarding school, then puts me on a train by myself. Because of course I'll be able to get home from the station safely without any help. I came straight here from the station."
There was a moment of silence as the boy's audience, who had taken up seats in various parts of the back room, pondered what the story he had just told. Then, the stocky man ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair and said, "That's a fascinating tale, 'Squeak, but unless you've got proof, you could just be shitting us."
"You mean proof, besides this owl, Shaun?" asked the boy, gesturing to the birdcage he had set down on a stack of boxes.
"Could have gotten it from an exotic pet shop," said Shaun with a shrug.
"That's fair, I suppose," said the boy, as he hopped down from the desk he had taken up a seat on, reaching under his shirt and taking out his Mokeskin pouch. Loosening the drawstrings as he walked over to the table with the map, he found a wide open empty spot on the map and upended the pouch.
Instantly, coinage poured out of the pouch in a cascade of gold, silver and bronze, quickly piling up until the heap on the table far outsized the purse it had come from. "Two pieces evidence," Harry said. "First, this pouch is bigger on the inside, as you can well see. Second, three denomination of coins, none of which you've likely seen before." Then, he pulled the train ticket the lunk had given him for school out of his bag and dropped it onto the table as well. "And, finally, a train ticket to get to the school."
A hush fell over the back room as everybody except the small boy eyed the small fortune in front of them, trying to digest what they had just witnessed. Then, bespectacled, suited man picked up one of the coins, weighing it in his hand. "And you're saying magical society uses these coins as currency?" he asked.
"Yes," Harry said, before turning towards the noirette. "Romy, I was going to ask if you could run a chemical analysis on the coins; I was told they're gold, silver and bronze, but I'm not sure how pure they are, if they're gold, silver and bronze at all."
"I can do that," said the noirette as she gathered a few of each type of coin and pocketed them. "Will it be all right for me melt them down, though? This could be a lot of money."
Harry nodded. "It's only a tiny fraction of what I inherited."
"It's important to know how pure the metals are," said the bearded man. "Once he does, Harry can determine the best course of action for his financial future."
An awkward silence hung in the air for another moment before Harry started gathering the coins scattered across the table and scooping it back into his Mokeskin pouch.
"So, a secret magical society, huh?" said Romy, as she fiddled with the coins in her pockets. "Told you Parliament was covering something up."
"Just because you were right about one thing without even being right about the specifics doesn't mean you're right about everything," chided the bespectacled man.
"You're an economics professor, Ethan," said the man in the dress shirt. "We should ask Sarah; she would the one who'd most likely know about other government conspiracies in history."
Ethan shrugged.
"Wait, you said you had the books you purchased delivered to your vault," said the brunette, her full lips pursing in thought. "How are you planning to get them?"
"I was going to ask you if you were busy tomorrow, Karen...," said the boy with an inviting smile that momentarily softened his otherwise hard eyes.
"I'm not," said the brunette. "But why me?"
"You're an actress," said the boy, "and I need somebody who can act like they've been there before, because there's a lot of unusual things in Diagon Alley. How about we meet tomorrow morning at eight at Langley railway station?"
Karen nodded her in agreement, biting her lip nervously at the prospect of visiting a district composed entirely of magical shops.
"Hol' up a minute," said Romy, who had taken the train ticket out of its envelop and was reading it over with a furrowed brow. "Is this a mistake? This ticket is for King's Cross Station, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."
"Well, the trog gave it to me, so I wouldn't put it past him," Harry said, "but can you imagine a regular training taking a school full of children to magical school?"
The noirette considered the question for a moment, then put the ticket back into the envelope before handing it back to Harry. "You should investigate it tomorrow, if you have time," she said, and the boy nodded an affirmative as he took the ticket and put it into his haversack.
"Well, I'm going to head home," said Harry, shouldering his haversack. "If aunt and uncle are back, they'll probably lock me away without food if I get home late. Have a good game; I'll be back tomorrow for Dungeons & Dragons."
"I'll walk you out," said the shopkeep, tapping the boy on the elbow as he exited the back room.
"Thanks, Jason," said the boy, as the shopkeep walked him out.
"Remember: train your body, train your mind," Jason called out after Harry as he left the shop.
~ooOoo~
It was already dark by the time Harry reached the front door at 4 Privet Drive, but he could not see any lights in the windows, downstairs or up. Trying the door and finding it locked, he tried the doorbell, then rapped it lightly with his knuckles, but even after a couple minutes, there was no response from inside.
Quietly, the boy examined the door. It was wood, painted brown, and the doorknob was metal, and Harry ransacked his mind, trying to think of how he could get inside. For a moment, he wished he had taken up Jason on his offer of teaching him to pick locks, but now, what he didn't know would do him no good, so he focused on the task at hand.
He had options; if he wanted, he could target the wooden body of the door, or the metal of the lock, though he could not affect both with a single spell, and as for the techniques, he could transform, destroy or control whatever he chose as his target.
Harry considered his options; if he destroyed anything, his aunt and uncle would probably put the belt to him, as would if he transformed anything in a way they thought "freakish", so his best option was likely to control the door. But controlling the door itself would be difficult, because the door was held in place by the hinges and the lock, so the lock would be his best target.
Inspecting the locking mechanism closely, the boy noted that the doorknob itself did not have a lock; rather, there as a keyhole for the deadbolt just below it, and Harry realized that was exactly what he would need to control for him to entry into the house at 4 Privet Drive.
The verbal component for the spell he would need were set: rego for control, terram for earth, or at least the minerals making up the metal of the lock. What was left was the gesture he would need to use for the spell; Harry quickly ran through the mudras he knew and settled on the one attributed to the remover of obstacles, the Ganesha mudra.
All that was left was his intention. Closing his eyes, Harry tried to picture in his mind what he needed to happen; though he was not sure how the mechanics of the deadbolt worked, he knew enough to know he needed at least the bolt to move, and so he envisioned the deadbolt moving. After a few repetition in his mind's eye, he opened his real eyes overlaid the visualization over the lock itself before pressing his palms together before his chest, resting his thumb lightly against his sternum; then, he swiveled his hands so the fingers on each were pointed in the direction of the elbow of the other, with his right palm facing his heart, before he bent his fingers and slid his hands across each other until his curled fingers interlocked, though he continued to pull even after his fingers were locked together.
Drawing a small quantity of Astral power into himself, Harry said "Rego terram," in a clear voice, finally pulling his hands apart as he let the Astral energy flow through him for a moment, and with a click-thump, the deadbolt unlocked, accompanied by the familiar heaviness of body he had come to associate casting a spell spontaneously.
With one hand, Harry let himself into 4 Privet Drive, closing and locking the door behind him. The house was as they had left it in their rush, and he could guess his aunt, uncle and cousin had yet to return from the island they had fled to after the hotel. Nonetheless, he decided it was not worth the risk to try his luck, and so he went upstairs, taking a cold shower that washed whatever fatigued remained from the magic he had used earlier.
Dressed and in the smaller bedroom his relatives had deemed his, Harry considered the beginnings of the familiar gnawing in his stomach, but decided against cooking himself a meal; given the chance, his aunt and uncle would be more than happy starve him for days, so going to bed a little hungry tonight with a possibility for future meals was a better idea than going to bed with a full stomach tonight but being foodless for a days to come.
Already, it was dark out, the waning moon provided a little light through the window; though tired, Harry reminded himself of what Jason had always told him about training his body to train his mind, and started on his nightly warm down routine.
Ten press ups. Ten sit ups. Ten squats. Ten burpees. Ten leg-raises.
Two minutes rest.
Ten more press ups. Ten more sit ups. Ten more squats. Ten more burpees. Ten more leg-raises.
Two more minutes rest.
Harry continued his calisthenics routine until he was exhausted, then fell into bed, pulling the blanket up to his neck.
It did not long for dreamless sleep to come