A Cordial Kidnapping
Harry James Potter was five years old when he agreed to be kidnapped.
He had seen the fox watching from the bushes for at least a year now, not every day but usually every week especially during the summer, which was when he was outside the most. Sometimes it was just a glimpse of yellow-orange eyes, other times the flash of a bushy red tail as the fox leapt away to vanish in the shadows under the hedge. Once, when a neighbor's dog got loose, it chased the fox through the neighbors’ gardens, but it was back the next day with a sly, sharp-toothed grin like it had been a game. The fox, he knew, wouldn’t be afraid of Aunt Marge’s slobbering bulldogs for even an instant.
It was a hot day in July and he was in the garden because Dudley was less likely to come looking for him if he had to leave the cool shelter of the house to do it. He was lying on the grass in the shade of the garden fence and watching the clouds. Sometimes he liked to imagine the clouds were islands and people lived on them. Maybe they lay on their bellies and gazed down at the green Earth while they imagined the lives of the people who lived down there.
His daydreams were interrupted by the slightest sound of leaves rustling. He turned his head to the side, expecting to see a bird or maybe one of Mrs. Figg’s cats, but instead saw the fox slinking out from under the hedge. Sitting up slowly, so as not to spook it, he watched wide-eyed as it approached him. Each step was as light and soft as a cat's, and that yellow-orange gaze was fixed steadily on him.
It had never gotten this close before, and while he had imagined petting the soft, red fur, now that this wild creature was drawing nearer, he was more than a little frightened. He had never gotten such a clear look at the fox before, and in the sunlight he could see that its fur was patchy in places, and it was skinny enough he could see the ripple of ribs and the sharp jut of hip bones through its pelt. It slunk along close enough to the ground that its belly almost scraped the top of the grass — and Uncle Vernon had only just cut it, so it wasn't very long.
A car went by in front of the house and the fox gave a full-body twitch as if it was going to run, but it didn't. It crouched for a second, panting, then continued its slow approach toward him.
He scooted back in the grass. There was a strange smell coming off the fox, a musky animal scent laced with something unidentifiable, somehow sweet and earthy and spicy all at once, like the smell that came right before rain.
When he backed away from it, the fox paused, almost as if it realized it had frightened him. They stared at each other for several long heartbeats until, slowly, ready to yank it back if the fox snapped at him, he extended his hand.
The fox leaned towards him until its cold nose brushed his fingertips, then jerked back. Disappointed, he started to say, “No, wait--” but fell silent when the fox did something unexpected.
It grew.
Its back arched and its form shimmered as it grew to the size of a dog, then larger. Red fur faded away, leaving behind pale skin and strange clothing as a woman emerged where the fox had been standing. She looked like she was about Aunt Petunia's age, but it that was where the similarities between the two ended. Her clothes looked like they were straight out of the Robinhood cartoon Dudley liked, old-timey and strange with a sort of shimmer to her grey-green shirt. Her hair, which was brown and pulled back into a long braid, had a vine wound into it. An honest to goodness vine, with leaves and everything. Her eyes stood out the most, because they were the same as the fox’s, sort of orange-ish yellow and wild.
He stared at her, too stunned to be frightened.
“Hello, Harry,” she said.
He jumped. The spell broken, he scrambled backward until his shoulders hit the prickling thorns of one of Aunt Petunia’s rose bushes, then froze again, feeling cornered.
“How d’you know my name?” Her accent was American. Even without that, he was dead certain he had never met her before in his life, and even more certain that she wasn't someone the Dursleys knew.
“I read a book about you,” she said. “Do you want to come live with me?”
His mouth dropped open. He’d had dreams like this, where someone — a secret relative or a friend of his parents or sometimes even a complete stranger, usually someone nice who he’d seen earlier that day — came to take him away from the Dursleys, and in his dreams he always leapt at the chance, but now that it was finally happening, he was hesitating for some reason. Hang on, maybe he was dreaming. He pinched his arm hard enough to make himself yelp, but when he looked back up, she was still there, waiting for his response.
“Who are you? You were a fox!” The words came out too fast and squeaky. She sighed, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought she was going to take back her offer, but she just sat down in front of him, settling cross-legged on the grass.
“I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I? I’m Hazel, and yes, sometimes I’m a fox.”
“How?”
“Magic.” She waved a hand dismissively, as if she was talking about something boring, like the weather, and not the coolest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.
“Can anyone do it? Can you teach me?”
“You’ll learn in time, but I can’t teach you. You don’t want to learn the way I learned, anyway. It’ll come easier to you, since you’re a wizard. Oh, and don’t be scared, by the way. I probably should have led with that. I don’t want to hurt you, I’m just here to kidnap you.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again with a snap as the word “wizard” oozed out one ear and “kidnap” fell into the other one. Warnings from his teachers raced through his mind. He knew bad things happened when someone was kidnapped, but he was foggy on what. Was it worse than here? She’d said she didn’t want to hurt him, which wasn’t quite the same as promising not to hurt him, but it was still a step up from Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley, all of whom he knew for a fact did want to hurt him sometimes.
Plus, she could turn into a fox. Or she was a fox who could turn into a woman. Either way, she had something his family didn’t; magic. Real, true magic, like in stories. Like in his dreams. And he could learn it too, if he went with her.
“Would I get my own cupboard?” If there were other kids wherever she was taking him, he didn’t want to get stuck sharing with someone like Dudley.
“Your own bedroom, you’re not a brownie.”
He had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He was sold. Rising to his feet, he dusted his trousers off and gave her a decisive nod.
“Okay. I want to come live with you, please. You can kidnap me.”