Chapter 2
The next week with Aunt Marge around was hell, she kept insulting my parents and I kept just thinking about my broom maintenance kit, to get my mind off of the cunt. When it got to much, I would go outside and just roam the street, giving me chances to vent my frustration by walking. Now was another such time, it was the last day of aunt Marge’s visit and she had drunkenly been badmouthing my parents and I just had to go away from her. So, I wandered through the street, looking around. To my surprise, I saw someone else in the deep night, a large dog, with the name tag [Sirius Black][Devoted Godfather] written in blue. Strange, wasn’t that the name of that escaped convict? To my surprise, the dog turned into a rugged looking man, with long, unkempt, black hair and so thin that you could probably see the ribs through his skin. I panicked but then remembered that his name was written in blue and the system had yet to fail me. Maybe it was naive to trust the system but it felt like the right thing to do.
“Sirius Black?”, I asked, pointing my wand at him, though I knew I couldn’t use it else I was thrown out of Hogwarts.
“Yes, it is me Harry”, he said, his voice raspy, “I am not a follower of he who must not be named, like they say. You must belief me, I am your godfather, the real person to betray your family is Peter Parker”
“Who is that and who are you? I saw your name on the muggle news”, I was very confused.
“Oh- you don’t know… well, let me explain. Your father and I were best friends, as was Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, we were all in Gryffindor together. After we graduated, there came a prophecy that a child born would defeat he who must not be named. The prophecy was either about you or about Neville Longbottom, so Dumbledore protected both. In case of your family, they were placed under the fidelius charm, a spell which binds a location under a secret keeper. If the secret keeper does tell someone where this location is, they can find it but otherwise it is completely untraceable. At first we thought about me being the secret keeper but we had the ‘brilliant’ idea of having Peter be the secret keeper. But he betrayed James and Lily, ran straight to you know who and afterwards he framed me for it, as well as killing 13 muggles with an explosive hex. He and I are animagi, we can transform into a specific animal, for me a dog, for him a rat. I was resigned to my fate in azkaban until I saw him in the news, he is hiding as a rat with the Weasleys”
“The weasleys? You mean scabbers? My best friend, Ron, owns a rat, with a missing claw”, I told him and his eyes lit up.
“Yes! Peter cut off one of his fingers when he escaped! You must help me kill him”
“How about we get him thrown into Azkaban instead? I could write a letter to Dumbledore, explaining everything and he could clear your name when we return to Hogwarts and Pettigrew is in the castle”, I suggested.
“Yes, as long as he pays for his crimes, I will be satisfied”, Black told me.
“And, you said you were my godfather?”
“Yes, I am, after my name is cleared, you can come live with me… that is if you’d like to? I understand if you would want to stay with your aunt and uncle too, I just think… well, my door is always open to you”, he smiled weakly.
“I would love to, the Dursleys are… less than friendly”
“Great!”, he smiled stronger this time, a big happy expression on his face.
“For now though, I will have to get back to the Dursleys… I will write to dumbledore tomorrow when Marge is gone”
“Of course, of course”
I walked back to the Dursleys home and snuck back up to my room. Hedwig was gone for now, staying at the Weasleys until Aunt Marge was gone, which would be tomorrow. So, I went to sleep and dreamt of leaving behind the Dursleys and living with Sirius, my godfather...
The next day, after Vernon had escorted Marge away, he signed my permission slip and I wrote my letter to Dumbledore, explaining everything to him.
[Quest complete 100xp in charms added]
Information about charms flooded into my mind, new spells that I remembered practicing despite never casting them.
The next day, Dumbledore came by the Dursley home and asked for me, Vernon was reluctant to let him in but eventually he was let in and into my room.
“I got your letter… are you really sure about what you wrote to me? 100% sure?”
“Yes, I am sure”
“Would you allow me to watch through your memories to see the full story?”, he asked me, worry twinkling in his eyes.
“You can do that?”
“Yes, it is a skill called legilimency. I wouldn’t do it without your consent of course”, he reassured me.
“Then, yes, look through my memories, if that is what it takes to free Sirius”, I gave a determined nod.
“Legilimens!”
I could feel his mind invade mine and search around, it took a few minutes but it stopped and Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, it seems to be true… I will arrange things to catch Pettigrew, don’t tell anyone about this, not your friends, not your family, not even other professors”
“Okay, I won’t”, I reassured him and he left. Once he was gone, I walked over to the golden ball of light left behind by him and touched it.
[Special skill legilimency learned!]
[+20 legilimency xp]
Information about how to use legilimency washed into my mind, though it wasn’t much, just the barebones of how to cast the spell and some theoretical knowledge.
That day, I decided to go to Diagon alley to shop for my school supplies. I took the muggle bus to charing cross roads, where I walked into the leaky cauldron and from there directly into diagon alley. There, I bought my books and potion supplies, as well as some new robes and -seeing how much money I had left- I also bought some normal street wear. I didn’t want to walk around in Dudley’s hand me downs anymore.
It was barely past noon, so I decided to stroll a bit through the alleys branching off of diagon alley, staying clear of knockturn alley though. There were many alleys branching off of diagon alley and alleys branching off from them too. This whole complex had been enchanted with space extension enchantments to make it bigger on the inside than the outside, or so Hermione had told me.
Walking through one of the alleys, I found a magical optometrist. How could I not have known that this existed?! I struggled for so long with my glasses and no one told me that there were magical eye doctors? These glasses weren’t even the right prescription. I had gotten them years ago and since then, my eyes had deteriorated even further. I was planning on visiting a muggle eye doctor soon but if there was a magical equivalent, why not spend my money here?
I walked inside and was greeted by the receptionist, “Good day, how may we be of service today?”
[Bertha Lipsey][Mother of two]
“Hello, I would like to know what my options are”, I told her, tapping my glasses with my pinky finger.
“Well, we have a few options, for 10 galleons we can get you a pair of self adjusting glasses that detect your prescription. For 2 galleons, we can get you normal glasses according to your prescription, if you don’t know your prescription, we can check that for you for an additional 5 sickles. There also is the option of fixing your eyesight all together but that is very expensive”
“How expensive?”, the idea of not needing glasses anymore was intriguing.
“100 galleons for both eyes”
“I think I can afford that, let me just run to gringotts really quick to get the money”
“No worries, you can simply write us a cheque, we have blank cheques here. You just need to write the amount you want transferred and drop a drop of blood on the paper, if you have multiple vaults, also write the vault number on the cheque, otherwise, it will just take the money from the vault with the most money”, she explained to me and handed me a cheque book. I wrote down:’100 galleons’ and let a drop of my blood hit the paper. The whole thing glowed a bright red color and the cheque vanished into thin air.
“Great! Now, let us get you ready”, Bertha moved me into another room, where a reclining chair was situated, she guided me over to it and said, “sit here, the medi-wizard will come to take care of your eyesight in a few minutes”
Not even a minute later, a wizard in bright white robes walked in. He was a middle aged wizard, with a goatee and piercing blue eyes.
[Henry Burt][Medi-wizard]
The ‘doctor’ made some small talk as he pulled out multiple vials filled with glowing liquids, “Now, open your eyes wide for me”
He let one of the potions drop into my eyes, three drops each and then, handed me another two vials, “and drink these two”
They tasted like mouthwash and strawberries, “Now, just wait a few minutes and your vision should clear up”
After five minutes, the effects started to take place, my vision slowly turned from blurry to clear over the time of three minutes. After that, I took off my glasses and was surprised with how clear and crisp everything was, even clearer than it had been with glasses.
“Say, are you by any chance Harry Potter?”, the doctor asked.
“Oh- um… yes I am”, I tried covering my scar with hair but it obviously didn’t work.
“Wow- I am such a fan! Could you, perhaps sign something for me”
“No, I- I don’t sign stuff”, I was getting more and more uncomfortable but luckily, he dropped the topic, “Well then, you are free to go”
Before leaving, I gathered up the golden balls of light floating around the room.
[+20 xp potion talent]
[+20 xp charms talent]
[+10 magical energy]
Hum- I need a way to keep up with wizarding news… I got it!
I subscribed to the daily prophet that day and then, I went back to the Dursleys with the bus.
There, I slept for the day.
The next morning I was awoken by an owl tapping on the window to my room, it was here with the news. I paid it the knuts and got my hand on the newsletter. Reading it over, there wasn’t much new things, a few articles about Sirius Black, something about a new hair growth potion and an article about how Gilderoy Lockhart was faring in st mungos’.