Miss Marilyn went to the door. She took a moment to check her pocket watch, nodded to herself and then tapped the cabinet lightly with her wand. "Aquo questo portello all'atro lato." The dark symbols turned a electric purple, flickered into light blue and then faded to dark. When the symbols had faded completely, the door fell open.
"Bloody hell," Harry muttered, looking through the door to see not a cupboard, but a the parlor of a large mansion.
"Harold!"
"Sorry, Miss Marilyn."
She let it slide, and moved out of the way so that the children could file through. As Harry moved through the door he felt the briefest moment of disorientation, as if he had just stepped off of an elevator. He quickly moved aside to allow their guardians to step through behind him, and looked back. They had all apparently stepped through someone's grandfather clock, and Harry could only shake his head at the concept. Did the cabinet and the clock connect only to each other or did they connect to other places? If wizards could do this sort of thing, why had Snape taken him to WYRA in a car?
Harry lingered close to the adults at first, but the other children quickly scattered into little clusters of friends to play games or investigate the room. It was a very lovely room with an air of antiquity Harry was coming to understand as the norm for the Wizarding world. There was an enormous white marble fireplace, engraved with dragons, a phoenix, and other fire related creatures that he couldn't identify. Elegant furniture that looked more beautiful than comfortable was scattered about the room, and a long table stood laden with an assortment of finger food.
"Where are we?" he finally asked, to no one in particular.
"Gnarlsbriar Manor," replied one of the guards offhandedly, watching closely so that none of his wards broke anything. "Summer estate of the Brimwoods Family, just south of Edinburough."
Harry glanced up to see a enormous gold and crystal chandelier laden with plain wax candles. "Are all wizarding homes this nice?"
The older man snorted. "They certainly like to pretend they are. Run off, Harold. My job isn't answering your nosey questions."
He frowned, but did as he was told. He found himself standing by an open window, looking out over a verdant Scottish countryside. In the distance, he could make out the dark shape of horses grazing behind stone paddocks. Trying to keep his thoughts from speculating on what strange thing might happen next, he kept his attention on those horses and their strange reddish hues. The longer he looked at them the stranger they began to look. Were those wings?
The sound of doors opening and the muffled thump of many footsteps drew Harry's attention to the other end of the parlor. Approximately twenty witches and wizards entered the room, all of them in pairs. At first Harry assumed the pairs were spouses, but there was one pair of only women and two of only men. As he pondered the peculiar arrangement, the witches and wizards (for that was the only thing they could possibly be dressed in their elaborate robes and some even with pointed hats) filed into the room and without preamble began cornering children. When ever a child was corner, they'd stop what they were doing to talk to the pair. Some of the children were better at it than others. The bolder ones smiled brightly and chatted as if to one of their friends, while others stammered or looked down shyly or nearly burst into to tears. Harry had a feeling he was going to fall into the second category, and even though he was incredibly curious, he turned back towards the window and prayed no one would approach him.
For a while, it seemed to work. The adults would always pass him by, occasionally turning curious glances at him, but never stopping. With this blatant disregard, it wasn't long before Harry began overhearing conversations he was certain he shouldn't have been privy to. One of the pairs of males, both young, slender, and dressed in a way that reminded Harry of accountants and investors, stopped not two feet away from him and began gossiping between themselves.
"Not much to pick from, is there Robert?" said the darker of the two.
"Josephine did say it was to be expected. It took her two years and eight parties just to find Carolyn. It's always a gamble when dealing with Muggle-stock."
Muggle-stock? What were these men here for? Children or cattle?
"The little black haired boy might be worth looking into."
"He's a bit of a scaredy-cat."
"He's five. He can be trained."
Fetch. Speak. Sit. Stay.
"I wanted a brunette or a blond. If he doesn't look at least a little like one of us then we'll look like a rather motley family. You remember Dorsey, right? His wife's has a light complexion just like him, but they kept adopting red heads. Their family portraits look like they've been mobbed by freckled woodsprites."
They both laughed loudly to each other, and Harry felt an up-welling of resentment towards them. Suddenly, both men stopped laughing, and slowly turned around to look at him. They both seemed startled to see him there, and even more startled at the malevolent look in his brilliant green eyes.
"Oh...h-hello," the blond said first, obviously embarrassed. His partner ( Harry believed they were in fact one of those 'special couples' his mother had told him about) looked startled, but recovered quickly and looked down on him with a certain smugness. It was certainly more dignified than Dudley's infantile smirk, but no where near as grating as Snape's had been. Now, Harry may not have known how to be polite and sociable to adult witches and wizards, but he certainly knew how to be rude to them. Rude was easy.
"Hallo. Mein Name ist Harry. Ihr seid unheimlich eingebildet, oberflächlich und aufgeblasen. Ich würde euch nicht einmal eine Katze adoptieren lassen, geschweige denn einen kleinen Jungen,"(1) he rambled off. The wizards both looked at him blankly for a moment, then the blond one hurriedly opened up a pamphlet he was carrying and flipped through it. At first, Harry though he was looking up what he'd said, but was proven wrong a moment later when the blond found what it was he was looking for.
"Ah... Harold James Potter. English born, but raised in Germany. Returned to England around eight or nine. Oh look there... almost eleven already. WYRA just picked him up last week. Imagine that? You rarely see them this old."
"Kein Grund so mich anzugaffen, du Fisch."(2)
"Are you sure the German wizards didn't just throw him back?"
"Robert!"
"He's mocking us, Kyle."
Harry grinned, all teeth.
"Er... yes, well... he is a brunette though. And your mother's eyes were green too."
Both Harry and Robert turned a disbelieving look at the smaller man.
"Don't even suggest it. Does he even speak English? Never mind, of course he does. It's bad enough dealing with backtalk in one language, let alone two."
"Why not? You can each have your own language of sarcasm," Harry offered.
"Yes, now see there," Kyle continued. "You'd get the English sarcasm. You of all people should appreciate that."
Despite himself, the corner of Harry's mouth twitched. He still did not like them, but they were...a cute couple? The moment Kyle saw the little slip he broke out into a full out grin.
"Oh and he's cute! He's almost eleven and still cute."
Harry blushed, which only seemed to delight Kyle further.
"No," Robert said firmly. "Absolutely not. Aside from being a brunette- and we can't be certain that bird's nest is his natural color or it just hasn't been washed properly- he's the opposite of everything we were looking for to begin with! He's too old, he's disrespectful, doesn't look a thing like me, and come on... it took ten years for his magic to pop up? He's probably a wink and a whistle from being a squib."
"Hey, I don't go calling you seafood..." Harry objected. "Oh, wait..."
"Squib, squib, not a squid. A muggle born from wizarding stock. God, what do they teach you all day?"
"How to make puppets out of popsicle sticks, but that doesn't matter. I'll be going away to a real wizarding school come September, and that will be that."
"There! See? He'd be in the house for what? A month? And then he'd be off to some trade school to making candles from the rest of the year."
"Aww... but Robby-"
"For the last time, no! Now I'm going to go check out that blond kid, you can join me when your common sense returns." With that, the man stalked off, leaving Harry alone with Kyle. The man put his hands on his hips and his expression was such that Harry was suddenly, and painfully reminded of his mother. He quickly went back to staring out the window.
"I'm sorry, Harold, but he's being quite unreasonable," the wizard said, ignoring the fact that his young companion was ignoring him.
"He sounded perfectly reasonable to me."