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Disclaimer: Parts of this chapter may be based on historic events, but should not be confused with factual history.
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Finding weed in any European city was not a particularly difficult task. Back when Harry had been still living in his previous life, he'd simply always had friends who had friends who had a dealer. At some point, he'd even been getting a steady supply of free stuff from a female friend whose boyfriend grew his own stash.
However, that had been after the year 2010, when stuff like that had been a bit more normalized. It had even been offered as a medical option. However, currently, in the year 1991, it was actually still classified as a class B drug.
This didn't necessarily mean that it was hard to find, but, it did mean that the process was a bit more suspect. Having drank the ageing potion and dressed in his big boy clothes, he and Tonks were now walking the Manchester streets at night. The girl had opted out of her pink hair for once, actually changing some of the features. According to her, this was so that in case Harry did something extremely stupid, it wouldn't be led back to her.
In his right hand, Harry was carrying a bottle of Jaegermeister along with some small paper cups, the importance of which would be revealed later.
"This looks approximately what we want," Harry said once they arrived in front of a rather large park, on which the clear moon was casting a pleasant light. It was a decently warm summer night and the campus of the local university loomed in the background. There were little groups of students, young people, and homeless louts pre-drinking either for a night of clubbing or for an early death to escape their dreary existence.
"It's a park, Harry, with a bunch of people drinking beer. I think I just saw a homeless person inject something," Tonks said worriedly.
Harry for his part simply walked on the close-cut mawn and approached the first decently mixed group that he saw. It was composed of six women and four men, all of them ranging somewhere between 19 and 24. They were dressed in very non-conformist fashions and looked over curiously as Harry approached them.
"Yo, new to town, mind if we sit down? Currently on the walk around meeting new people and y'all seem like cool peeps," Harry said in a very laissez-faire manner as he plopped down in an open spot between two dudes dressed in metal shirts. "Burzum," he commented. "Good taste my dudes."
The one on the right, with overly long brown hair and a scruffy attempt at a beard laughed. "You American or what?" he asked. "Nevah been called a peep before. What you doing in Manchester?"
"Just here on an exchange semester starting next, moved a bit early since I have the means anyway," Harry lied, like a liar. "Always wanted to visit the glorious motherland and considering y'all voted out that walking abomination last year I thought now would be the perfect time." He poured out three little cups, passing them to the two metalheads.
"I'll drink to that," the one that had been quiet up until then muttered and took a cup, choosing to ignore the beer sitting at his booted feet.
"Not like there's any hope anyway, new one's a tory as well," a girl complained from the other side of the circle, where Tonks had awkwardly sat down and was being interrogated by two women dressed in short jeans and tank tops.
"I don't know, may the party rot in hell and all that, but this John Major seems like a decent enough bloke," Harry said, not really knowing how to break it to the poor students that the quiet conservative was the last good PM their country would get. Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the muggle part of the country was doomed as fuck.
"Bah what do you know ya yank," someone muttered good-naturedly.
"Maybe it's his image, nice set of accountant glasses, very non-threatening," Harry compromised and raised his glass along with his two neighbours to take a shot.
"Bloody cold," the long-haired one sputtered. Harry wasn't barbaric enough to drink warm Jaeger and had cooled it down magically.
"My beer's warm by now, can I have some of that?" a red-haired girl from the other side, and before long Harry was handing everyone a shot of the cool herb liquor, chatting about philosophy, sociology and other such things.
He was just telling John, the long-haired-metal head, a 3rd-semester student of philosophy, about how Thompson's seminal work was actually incomplete due to her inconsideration in regards to anti-natalist viewpoints when someone started rolling the first joint.
Glancing at Tonks he saw the girl looking at the process awkwardly, probably never having even seen a grinder before. Before she could create a tense atmosphere Harry interrupted. "Damn you guys got a supplier?" he said faux jealously. "I just landed a few days ago, why you gotta flex on me so hard," he complained eliciting numerous laughs from the other Brits. "Bah, don't feel too superior, I heard this costs way too much on these islands."
The joint started passing around, at which point the conversations started becoming a bit more incoherent, but several times funnier. Harry himself, who hadn't smoked at all in his life nearly coughed at his first drag but managed to control himself and pass to the next person. He could already tell that he was going to be extremely high from just the small amount as the heady feeling making everything seem irrelevant but hilarious rose to his head. Maybe this body was blessed with a low resistance, or perhaps it was just because it was his first time. He was trusting his magic to mitigate the negative long-term effects of smoking young, but once would probably be fine anyway.
He was Tonks take a hit amateurishly, and leaned towards the person who'd made the joint. "Yo, if you make me another one for the way I'll give you the whole bottle of jaegermeister and a story," he offered. The seemingly oldest of the group seemed amused and promptly rolled another joint. Liquor and joint switched owners and one of the girls laughed.
"A story, what story?" she asked in between giggles.
"Well, it's about that one time a German friend visited me in New Haven on the East Coast. We went to New York together to have a drink and attend a museum party in Brooklyn. The dude was too cheap to hail a cab back to the hotel and we ended up walking the whole way. The story involves three Jamaican drug dealers from Staten Island, one prostitute, one near fatality and a whole lot of running," he explained.
"You're a Yaley then?" Someone asked. "What are you doing in Manchester? Shouldn't you be exchanging at Oxford or Cambridge?"
Harry waved them off. "Hey, don't judge me. I wanted to go to Birmingham originally, the most beautiful city in the world that it is, but they wouldn't take me. You lot are decisively second choice."
"Fuken Birmy he says," someone guffawed.
"Tell the story," someone prompted.
"Alright, I can do that," Harry started. "It's honestly quite quaint, just another one of those examples in which the German spirit, predisposed to walking as it is, got everyone else into trouble. Yeah sure, they usually walk over borders to achieve that, but y'all should know that you don't walk anywhere in the U.S. Firstly, things are too far, secondly, you're going to get mugged. Or shot, or both. Anyway, try telling that to a German microbiologist whose only impression of the U.S. at the time was going to the Brooklyn Museum to a night party with a bunch of fashion designers. Dude bankrupted himself getting there, those flights aren't a joke, and a taxi was just going too far. It was only one hour walking," he let that sink in, people groaning.
"Fucking Germans," someone muttered.
"It wasn't that this was the only problem though, you see, my friend, Lukas, was quite drunk. They were really boozing him up back there, and now his taste for drugs had taken a new edge. He wanted some weed. Desperately. He didn't tell me this of course, or else I would have told him that that shit ain't going to fly amigo and that I have some at home back in New Haven. Of course, drunk and potentially racist that he was he walked up to the first people smoking pot that we passed on our nightly escapade and asked the six foot-six-something Jamaican's leaning on their fucked little Ford Comfort if he could have some weed. The dude's answered in their accent, hilarious by the way. They were like 'Mi luv it when someone straightforward. Wheel up the blaze maaan,' one of them said and started rolling an absolute abomination of a blunt. It wasn't cigarette paps he was using, but a fucking cigar leaf, no tobacco in it either. I was looking at the thing like, no fucking way am I taking a puff of that. Anyway, Luka is like 'Yeah broo let's hit that,' with a completely plastered face. The Jamaican dudes start puffin', blowing rings and whatever, start asking us what we do. Lukas was doing a PhD in Microbiology at that time, so one of the dudes asked him if he knew how to make crack. Says he's been saving up and has a 40k to start the business up, would be willing to do a 50/50 split."
"No fucking way," Tonks muttered. "Harry do you ever shut up."
"Shush babe, I'm telling a story," he said, before turning to his attentive audience. "Anyway, Lukas is about to answer, but the blunt monster finally passes to him so he takes a puff, starts looking a bit shaky, but says that he doesn't know how to make crack. But, he offered, if they ever needed their synovial fluid analysed for LPS concentration he was their man. Blunt passes to me, I pretend to puff, knowing we'll need a sober person at the end of the night. Just whiffing this thing with my nose though is as strong as any joint I've ever had. That's the point when Lukas runs green in the face and collapses, falling to the floor. I've never seen someone move so fast in my whole life, the dudes jumped in their car and wheeled off in what I swear was less than a second and I was just left standing there with a collapsed idiot and the biggest blunt I've ever seen in my life. Didn't really want to call an ambulance so I decided to put out the blunt and check on my friend, if he didn't wake up in 30 seconds I was going to call one, that's how long people usually need to recover from a short fainting spell. Lukas awakens with a gasp five seconds after I checked his pulse, thankfully still there, and pukes all over my shoes, the bastard. I call us a taxi, which he attempts to refuse while still lying on the floor. Anyway, the taxi comes, takes one look at the suspect situation and just drives off. Zero fucks given, those cabbies don't want none of that. I'm sort of desperate at this point since I can't really carry this moron all the way home, so I manage to stumble with him down the street until I come across a scantily clad lady, around fifty years old, a bit chubby, still beautiful in an oddly erotic way. 'Damn girl,' I said to her. 'You free tonight?'"
Everyone busted up at that, after the laughter died down Harry continued with his story.
"She takes one look at me, and my absolutely destroyed German friend slurring in his native language. 'Triple for two,' she says and I can only nod at that point. I asked her if she had a car, at which point she reluctantly said that she did. Anyway, I paid her 50 bucks to drive us to our hotel. ," He finished recounting, getting some more chuckles.
"What happened to Lukas?" one of the girls asked, at which Harry shrugged.
"I mean, he lived and all, but I never went out drinking with the dumbass again. Last I heard he's studying the link between gut microbiota composition and neural degeneration in dementia on some Finnish cohort in Helsinki. Postdoc." He turned to Tonks. "Anyway, I think it's time for us to go," he said, walking over to the girl who'd actually seemed to enjoy chatting with her newfound friends and helping her up by the hand. "It was nice meeting y'all," he said to the Manchester students. "See you around."
They got well-wishes and banter thrown at their backs as they distanced themselves from the group. The mission was successful, they'd gotten a joint, all for the low, low price of one bottle of Jaegermeister. A horrible deal really, but it wasn't like Harry wanted to make smoking a regular habit. He always ended up demotivated the day after and didn't accomplish much. As much as this was alright in the context of summer vacation, he was quite attached to his magical progression when he was at Hogwarts. And considering his work ethic, just missing a day or two was quite the setback. Also, he didn't want to risk his magic not counteracting the negative side effects. He'd start smoking more again when he actually turned 25, not when he only looked like it due to an ageing potion.
This brought up an interesting question regarding the ageing potions' ability to reduce neuroplasticity by ageing. Magic, simple as always, dealt with forces much beyond the understanding of the user. Quite frankly anyone with an actual knowledge basis of modern medicine, physics, or chemistry would likely have a heart attack when considering the implications of some spells and potions, wondering how the caster hadn't either killed themselves or set off a nuclear explosion. Harry was pragmatic and had decided early on to ignore that part. Magic worked, that was that. Any muggle-born delusional enough to think that they could fuse muggle academics and magical knowledge soon realised their folly. There was no inbuilt way for the two systems to truly interact. Magic was nothing like anything the world had ever seen, this was why it was magic and not just another field of science.
Or maybe Harry just wasn't smart enough. It wasn't like he'd been an avid scientist in his past life. He'd died before being able to complete his bachelor's thesis in a humanistic field.
"What was that principle called again?" Tonks suddenly asked as they made their way back to the car. This was before every European city was impossible to park in, Harry enjoyed the short reprieve. "When the most obvious solution is the most likely one?"
"Occam's razor states that between a complex and a simple solution, the simpler one is always more likely," Harry answered as they crossed over from park to street and walked past party-goers and drunkards. It was turning out to be a lively night. They'd enjoyed an hour or so of it with the students, but it was a good time to be going back.
"That was a real story you told back there. Your work ethic. The way you speak. The way you handle social interactions. Your knowledge of food and alcohol. The only thing that seems remotely real about you is your ability to do magic, and even that's crazy," Tonks began. "The simplest explanation is that you're not actually a twelve-year-old. The more complex explanation involves… I don't even know."
Harry didn't reply to that, deciding to plead the fifth. But after Tonks didn't say anything for a while, he had to ask. "So what does that mean exactly, and why does it matter?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," Tonks said with a sigh. "You're a good person. Or else you wouldn't have stood between me and a werewolf with only a sword. You help your younger friends excel in class. You're an adult somehow living in a child's body. Which doesn't have to necessarily be a bad thing…?" she trailed off. "You're not a dark wizard possessing the body of a child are you?"
"I'm not a dark wizard," Harry said while rolling his eyes. "Never used a dark spell in my life, actually."
"Alright, I guess that's enough for me," Tonks said. "You said you'd tell me more when my Occlumency was good enough."
And also when Harry was powerful enough that it wouldn't matter if people wanted to kidnap him due to the nature of his existence, Harry added in his head. This would probably happen by the end of Hogwarts to be honest, at the pace that he was going. How strong would he really leave the institution? As powerful as the average auror? As powerful as Alastor Moody, who was capable of taking down ten Death Eaters with him? Maybe as powerful as Flitwick.
In a way it was funny, despite knowing how driven he was and how hard he worked, everyone assumed that his ambitions were normal-sized. The Hogwarts staff thought he wanted to excel academically and learn as much as possible. Flitwick thought he wanted to win the duelling championship. Penny thought he wanted to not fail Potions and his family thought he wanted to retire to the seaside with a nice little cottage and spend his life idling, maybe after going to muggle university. It would definitely be a nice experience to do so. However, while these were certainly all short-term goals, a larger something was beginning to brew inside him. Every new piece of magic he learned, every new area he excelled in. The shackles of conformity and normal expectations were falling off him as if they were made of sand. He could feel it in his soul, a low hum. A vibration. A resonance with the universe.
Nietzsche had been a philosopher who'd tried to counteract the incoming wave of nihilism that he'd predicted from the death of religion. His famous musings on the death of god. How god has remained dead. How we killed him. How shall we, murderers, console ourselves; was more of a prompt for others to come up with ways to combat the future inevitable wave of pessimism that marked any great civilization that lost its guiding light.
For Harry, the answer was simple. While his past incarnation might have laboured under the chains of physics and physical frailness. Of needing, as a muggle, other muggles to achieve anything great. Then his magical self had sprung all those chains and realized the simple truth. If god was dead, then the throne of god was empty, and if the throne of god was empty, then someone else could sit on it. Magic was not a hobby, a convenience, as some wizards and witches thought. It was not a tool to subjugate others, to spread terror. Neither was it a fascinating force of the universe which was to be studied and never used. Magic was nothing more and nothing less than the possibility to inflict a personal ideology onto one's own life without needing the help of anyone else to do so.
"You know, you could at least say something," Tonks grumbled as they got to the car.
Harry threw her a smile. "You're a great friend, Tonks. But you're really going to need to work on your Mind Arts skills." He was oddly unafraid of someone growing suspicious of him by gleaming Tonks' opinion from the surface of her mind. After all, he'd been giving people enough reason to be suspicious already. Also, it wasn't like Tonks really knew anything. He was always going to cut a suspicious figure as an adult living in a child's body. This didn't change anything. The duelling tournament starting up, however, could maybe change everything. While Harry didn't think he had it in him to win quite yet, a good showing might just tip the scales in several different directions.
He started the car, taking the anti-intoxication potion Tonks had prepared. The drive back home was short and pleasant, the atmosphere between the two friends as clear as it was going to get.
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AN: I think this was a very interesting chapter with a very different tone than the rest of the story. True story about the weed btw, just made up the prostitute bit, we did eventually get a taxi. If you want to read up to 25 chapters ahead there's always patreon ;)