early childhood
The Power He Knows Not
Chapter 4: early childhood
The next day, Frank Longbottom’s mother, Augusta, picked Harry up from Saint Mungo’s Hospital and took her home. Until her Foster parents were recovered, Harry and Neville would be staying with her. Since Harry had been placed with the Longbottoms, she had performed the occasional telepathic scan to keep abreast of what the adults were worrying about. In light of recent events, this seemed to her a more prudent practice. Currently, August was reading a newspaper: the Daily Prophet, which featured moving pictures that should be beyond the reach of 20th century technology. Harry was scanning her as she read, using Augusta’s eyes to read the paper and the same time the elderly woman was doing so.
The front page story was about the arrest of Sirius Black after he murdered a man named Peter Petigrew and a dozen muggles. (Must be an AKA for mundanes) But the paper wasn’t making sense in light of what she’d seen when she met and scanned the man. The part about him murdering Petegrew, she could certainly believe. His mind was filled with plans to do that very thing during the brief time she had met him. But the article also claimed that Black had betrayed her parents location, not Petigrew, as Black had believed when she had scanned him. Oh well. She’d wait and see what the paper said about his trial.
It was nearly a week later before Frank and Alice came to take Harry and Neville home. Harry was continuing to pretend to be a normal person. Though she drew the line at using a nappy and was potty trained at a younger age than was normal. Other than that, she pretended to be normal. But it wasn’t working. When they were away from the children, Frank and Alice would express concern that neither of the boys were displaying signs of accidental magic. Harry knew this from telepathically snooping into their minds, which they were unable to detect.
One day, when they were two years old, Harry was casually doing a surface scan of Neville, when she felt him push back. He was no where near strong enough to even delay her telepathy. But he had detected her intrusion and tried to keep her out. After that, she began incorporating light scanning into their play, encouraging him to try to keep her out. His telepathic shields became stronger and stronger as time progressed. After a year of this, Neville started reaching out to her, attempting to scan her telepathically.
Two was also the age at which Harry had gained enough mobility that she could sneak into the library and read. Between the newspaper and the books in the library, she was beginning to this she wasn’t in her own past after all. Surely if a secret magic-using society existed, It would have been revealed by the 23rd century?
By the time they were 4, Harry judged that Neville’s telepathic ability was at least on the level of P12, strong enough to become a Psi-Cop. Harry and Neville would often engage in telepathic conversations. (An ability that they hid from Neville’s parents) Harry wondered if she might be able to teach Neville telekinesis? Only one in 10,000 telepaths of the 23rd century could do telekinesis. Perhaps Neville could be one of them? To her surprise, she was able to teach it to him. Unlike telepathy, this was visibly apparent and soon Neville’s parents were praising his displays of ‘accidental magic’, which only encouraged Harry to openly use her telekinesis in front of them too. She continued to teach her foster brother how to use telekinesis and he refined his ability.
One thing that bothered Harry about her new life was how isolated they were from the mundane world. They were living their lives with little to no contact with non-magical people. So when they turned 6, Harry put her foot down and demanded that they go to mundane public school. Neville was not so certain about this idea, but wanted to stay with Harry. It was a difficult fight and Harry was tempted to alter their minds, but in the end, she was able to persuade them without resorting to such methods.
“Good morning class. I am you teacher, Miss Putnam.”
Harry listened to the teacher on their first day of school. On the one hand, this was a colossal waste of time. 1st grade education was far below her level. On the other, there were many things that everyone in this era took for granted that she as a person from the 23rd century or a mundane would not know. Much of the way of doing things and technology was so archaic that she was seeing it all for the first time outside of a museum or historical vid. Still, there was much boredom involved. So Harry distracted herself by telekinetically lifting every desk in the room at the same time, a millimeter off the floor. Not high enough for anyone to notice. But it helped build up her psi ‘muscle’ and endurance. While doing such tricks to amuse herself, she’d also scan the teacher, trying to see how deeply she could scan without the person showing visible symptoms. She’d been working with her foster brother, Neville for years, teaching him telepathy and telekinesis. But he was not where near as powerful or skilled as she. It best he could telekinetically lift one desk and not do so, smoothly enough that the person sitting in it would not notice. But mostly, Harry’s days were filled with boredom, as she endured pretending to learn how to read and write at a glacial pace.
It made her look forward to football (soccer) practice this afternoon. A couple of days a week, Alice would take Harry and Neville into London where they would participate in a children’s football league. It was a good way to build up endurance and coordination. They’d also made some friends with their team mates, most notably a Londoner named Dean Thomas. Football was good practice. Sometimes, even if you knew what your opponent was going to do, you couldn’t physically prevent the from doing it. So as long as they didn’t use telepathy to interfere with their opponents or telekinesis to move the ball, the games were pretty fair.
As the years of schooling passed by Harry continued to work on learning the culture and technology of the time she was in. Every day, she’d check out a new book from the library so she could learn about the history and technology of this era. She also honed her psi abilities while also helping Neville to do the same when they were at home.
The Longbottom parents were starting to take the children to parties where they would me the other children who were growing up in a magical home. Most of them called themselves ‘pure bloods’. This expanded their circle of friends to include people like: Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot and Draco Malfoy. Though calling the Malfoy brat a friend was stretching the true a bit.
“You’re going to school with a bunch a filthy muggles?” Sneered Draco. “What’s the matter, squib? Don’t your parents have the courage to get rid of their squibs?”
“You shut up!” Yelled Neville. “I am NOT a squib!”
“Squibby! Squibby! Squibby!” Taunted Draco.
Suddenly, a large glob of mud lifted off the ground (aided by Neville’s telekinesis) and hit Draco square in the face!
“Wait until my father hears of this!” Squealed Draco, as he ran back to the house.
This was the first of many incidents between the Malfoy boy and Neville and/or Harry. Over the years, they became bitter rivals with Draco. Harry continued to study both the mundane technology of this era and the magic that the Longbottoms used at home. She was trying figure out what magic actually is and how it works. How is it related to her psi abilities? When hadn’t she heard of magic in her own era? Her efforts to understand this took her deep into quantum physics and brain anatomy.
One day an owl appeared with Neville’s Hogwart’s invitation, the next day Harry’s arrived. They were both going to go learn magic at the school their parents had gone to.