Harry Potter and the Monster of Gryffindor

Hagrid, Harry decided, was brilliant. He had made Aunt Petunia faint, pulled an owl out of his pocket, and then put Harry in the sidecar of the motorbike and driven them both to London. He had shown Harry the heap of gold his parents had left him, had taken him shopping for school supplies, bought him an ice cream, and declared that he would get Harry’s animal himself. At this Harry stopped.

“Hagrid,” he asked, still marvelling that the man allowed him to ask as many questions as he liked, “are there magical snakes?”

“Ah, yer not allowed snakes at Hogwarts,” Hagrid said, “that’s in the rules. An’ owl, a cat or a toad. Don’t like cats, they make me sneeze, and toads wen’ outta fashion years ago. I’ll get yer an owl.”

“I know they’re not allowed, but are there magical snakes? I think I met one over the summer. It talked to me.”

“Talked to yer?” Hagrid seemed to go pale beneath his beard. He lowered his voice, and bent down to look Harry in the eye. “Harry, tha’s not good. They say You-Know-Oo could talk ter snakes. An’ Slytherin himself, o’course.”

“But,” Harry protested, confused, “it was talking in English. Anyone could’ve understood it.”

Hagrid relaxed. “Oh, tha’s alright then. Yeah, that woulda been magical alright. Where’d yeh meet it? S’not common that. I’d like ter see that.”

“In London, at the Zoo. It said it was going to Brazil. It told me I’m a wizard, only I didn’t believe it.”

“Hmm. Well, it shouldn’a been at the zoo, I’ll say that. Not ‘round muggles anyway. Sounds like it didn’t do no harm, though. Let’s go ter the menagerie over there, you can ask ‘er inside about snakes if yeh like.”

Harry did like, and the owner of the shop was as curious as he was. She told him about runespoors, ashwinders, and horned serpents. But she had never heard of anyone making snakes who spoke English. Snakes, she informed Harry, had always been a symbol of Evil in Britain, and speaking to them was held to be an instant sign of Dark Magic (he could hear the capital letters as she spoke). She didn’t have any in her shop, although there were places in Knockturn Alley which sold snakes to apothecaries. She sounded disapproving.

Dissatisfied with her answers Harry turned away in time to see Hagrid holding out a brown and white speckled owl in a large cage. “Happy birthday,” he said, smiling down at Harry’s delighted expression. Over fish and chips in the Leaky Cauldron Hagrid told him about his new owl. He was a Little Owl, native to Britain* and very territorial, meaning that he would settle into a bond with Harry quickly. He would mainly eat insects and should enjoy sunning himself in the daytime, which made the species, on the whole, more friendly to younger wizards. Harry couldn’t stop thanking Hagrid. He’d just had the best day of his life, and it seemed impossible to him that Hagrid had even bought him an owl.

***

Reality hit as he climbed back into the sidecar for the journey back to Surrey. The owl couldn’t live in a cupboard with him. Harry wondered whether he ought not be staying away from number 4 now. Aunt Petunia had fainted at the sight of Hagrid, and he couldn’t imagine Uncle Vernon being any happier. It would be a tight squeeze to get himself and his trunk into his cupboard, too. So it was that Harry asked Hagrid whether the owl couldn’t stay at Hogwarts with him for the rest of the holidays. Hagrid was reluctant but agreed eventually when Harry explained that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn’t like animals. Hagrid looked a bit perplexed at this, as though not liking animals was somehow inhuman. Like not breathing air.

Harry had just pulled his trunk over the threshold of number 4 when Uncle Vernon came out of the kitchen yelling. The torrent of sound hit Harry without meaning, so that he could only discern a few words. Not in my house, freaks, unnatural, should have sent you away long ago. Harry dropped the heavy trunk and ran for his cupboard. He wrenched open the door and pulled out the sock under his mattress which contained what had been, until that afternoon, his entire worldly wealth. He narrowly avoided both the cupboard door and his uncle’s legs as he dove back out, tugging desperately at the handle of his trunk to pull it back out the front door. As soon as he was back on the porch, the door slammed behind him, and he heard the locks turn.

Hagrid was nowhere in sight, although Harry hadn’t spent long in the house. Harry sat on his trunk at the side of the road, wondering what to do. If only he hadn’t sent his new owl away, he could have written Hagrid a letter and explained. When Hagrid got to Hogwarts, wherever it was, he could have helped Harry sort things out. Well, that bird, Harry smiled humourlessly, had flown.

He had to get back to Diagon Alley. Somehow, someone would be able to help him there. Tom at the Leaky Cauldron might even let Harry spend the night there in exchange for kitchen help. Harry knew his way around a stove, after all. Where was it? Charing cross? Harry stood, brushing his hand over his pocket to check the sock of muggle money was still there. He’d have to get a train to London, and he had no idea how much that would cost.

At least Little Whinging had a train station. People in Upper Scrote had to come into Little Whinging to catch the train or go into East Scrote. Uncle Vernon complained that they were lowering the tone of the neighbourhood, and always warned Dudley to stay away from Upper Scrote. Dudley had immediately wanted to go there. Harry tugged his trunk though the darkening streets, glad of the orange light of the streetlamps. He had no idea what time it was, or even if trains were still running. By the time he reached the little station he was exhausted, and wet through with rain from a storm which had been building all day. He bought a ticket to Waterloo and sat down on his trunk in the little bus shelter. The train wasn’t due until the morning. Harry slept.

***

He was shaken awake by a man in a suit. “You to go to London?” asked the man. Harry blinked sleepily and nodded, “come on, trains about to go.” The man helped Harry bring his trunk into the carriage just before a guard came to close the door. “Ain’t seen one o’ these for a while. My old mum had one she took to school. Still got it somewhere I shouldn’t wonder. You be alright now?” Harry nodded and thanked the man again. The man wandered off to find a seat and Harry sat back down on his trunk, idly swinging his legs.

It was an hour to Waterloo, and another 30 minutes to Charing Cross. The guard Harry asked for directions seemed confused that he wasn’t with his parents, but when Harry explained that they were dead he looked uncomfortable and sent him on his way quickly enough. Outside the station Harry couldn’t recognise anything from his trip yesterday with Hagrid. He knew the Leaky Cauldron was between a record shop he thought was called Kevin’s and one of those strange bookshops that only sold very old and very expensive books. He looked around for someone to ask and saw a woman in a policeman’s uniform standing by the station entrance.

“’scuse me, Miss,” he asked, looking up at her. “’m looking for Kevin’s, the music shop. ‘s next to a book shop.” She pointed down a street, looking at him oddly. Harry assumed she was wondering why he didn’t have parents. He followed where she had pointed and finally found the pub, feeling sweaty and exhausted.

He pulled his case up to the bar and old Tom the barman came over. “Mr. Potter,” the old man wheezed, much quieter than he had exclaimed yesterday, “what brings you back so soon?”

“I’ve-” Harry stopped, hating how weak he sounded. “I’ve no where to go. Can, please, can I stay here? I can cook, and clean, I’ll be helpful. Please?”

The old barman looked down at Harry. He seemed to be making up his mind about something. Harry simply stood there trying to keep his eyes open and afraid that if he shut them, he might fall asleep where he stood. “There’s a room at the top,” Tom said at last. “It’s a bit pokey, but you’re small enough yet. You get some sleep, and we’ll talk about payment when you wake up.”

Tom helped Harry get his trunk up the narrow stairs to an attic bedroom. Harry had expected something like his cupboard from Tom’s word ‘pokey’, but this was bigger than Dudley’s room. There was even a small bathroom, though Tom called it a ‘privy’. The ceiling was low, and Tom could only stand up right in the middle, but Harry loved it at once. Tom handed him the key and told him to “sleep as long as you need and come down whenever you’re ready.” Harry didn’t need telling twice.

***

It was noon when Harry awoke, and he was at first a bit confused by his surroundings. Then he remembered and jumped off the bed. He felt wide awake, now, and very grimy. Between the night outside, the trains, the crowds, and the exhaustion of pulling his trunk he felt in desperate need of a wash. He investigated the ‘privy’. It consisted of a toilet and a small sink crammed into a space half the size of his cupboard. He pulled his clothes off and used the T-shirt to take a ‘sponge-bath’ from the sink. It wasn’t as good as a shower, but it was a lot better than nothing.

Clad in his Hogwarts uniform, the only clothes he now had, he sought out Tom. He found the kitchen first, where a rather alarming hunch-backed old man grinned at him toothlessly. Stammering that he was looking for Tom, Harry was immensely grateful when the old man indicated a door which led behind the bar. Tom was already serving customers, so Harry waited in the doorway, reluctant to go back into the kitchen with the alarming stranger, but not wanting to get in Tom’s way in the bar. Eventually Tom was free to talk. To Harry’s discomfort he led the way back to the kitchen and introduced the hunch-back as Dave. Tom seemed to understand Dave’s toothless remarks, although Harry couldn’t catch a word.

“Dave cooks and helps me with the books. I clean and take the bar,” Tom explained, “and we’d both like to know what you’re doing here. What do you mean you’ve no-where to go?” Harry tried to explain about his muggle relatives not liking magic, and his Uncle Vernon sending him away last night. Dave let out a string of sounds which Tom nodded along to. “Dave says that it’s no wonder you were so tired when you came in, if you’ve been out all night. You can stop here for a bit before school starts, if you like. No-one uses that room. But I happen to know the Potters had money. You don’t have to work for your keep. Keep the room tidy and you can use it for 6 galleons a week. Its only four weeks to the start of term. And I’ll throw in breakfast as well. You’re too skinny.”

Harry nodded. In his exhaustion he had forgotten his parents’ money. Would there be enough for him to stay for four weeks? He’d have to go back to the bank to check. He’d have to go back to the bank to get the money anyway. He told Tom and Dave this apologetically, trying hard to speak to both of them, and not just to Tom. “That’s alright,” Tom said, easily, Dave nodding along this time. “If you can’t pay, we’ll sort something else out, but I think you’ll be alright. First week by the end of today, please.” Harry nodded. He still had some money in his trunk upstairs from yesterday. And that was that. All sorted out.

Harry went back upstairs to find his money bag and the small key Hagrid had given him. He opened the window to clear the musty smell from the room, and then got distracted using Dudley’s damp T-shirt to wipe down the floors and surfaces. He rinsed it out in the little sink twice, wincing at the grey water which spiralled down the plughole slowly. After a second wipe the room looked brighter than it had. He flicked Dudley’s trousers around the ceiling to discourage the spiders, straightened the bedding where he had crumpled it earlier, and smiled around the little space. It was good to be home.

***

Diagon Alley was still thronged with people when he went out in the late afternoon to Gringotts. A lot of them seemed to be families with children, presumably doing Hogwarts shopping, but there were others too. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he walked down the street behind a pair of witches meeting up for a day in the city, complaining about the Hogwarts students. “I hear in America the school supplies the books. So much more convenient. Why parents can’t control their children these days! Quite so, my dear, when I was a child…”

Harry grinned. Even when they were witches, people were just the same.

His time at Gringotts was rather more informative, and overwhelming, than he had hoped. The Trust Vault he had access to until he was 17 contained a little over a thousand galleons in mixed denominations. The Potter Vault, which he would access at the age of majority contained approximately 30,000 galleons and most of the valuables from the Potter properties, of which three were long term rentals in London, one was a ruin in a place called Godric’s Hollow, and one was a country house now in disrepair which hadn’t been lived in for the last few hundred years. There was the Potter’s Potions and Pills Vault, a business account which hadn’t been used in the last 30 years, but which had some income from the various patents still extant (Harry had to ask the goblin what that meant). There was also an unnamed vault set up by Harry’s mother using the inheritance from her muggle parents. He would be able to access this at 17 also, and it contained about another 10,000 galleons.

In short, Harry had enough to pay for four weeks at the Leaky Cauldron. He withdrew a little extra to purchase some clothes and toiletries, by now feeling a desperate need for both soap and toothpaste, and headed back into the Alley with his head spinning.

That night he sat on his bed, thinking about the money in Gringotts and about his parents. He didn’t know anything about them. His father’s family had been wizards for a long time, and his mother’s family hadn’t. His father’s family had a business selling potions. Aunt Petunia’s mother had worked in a department store and her father had been some sort of manager, but Aunt Petunia never really talked about her family. They were, Harry now realised, his family too. His grandparents. But they had always seemed to belong to Aunt Petunia, rather than to him. Now, he had a tangible connection to his family. He wanted to know more about them.

When Harry awoke in the morning it was to an insistent kew kew noise coming from the window. The little owl Hagrid had got him, he was sure it was the same one, was sitting on the window ledge. He stroked the owl and held his arm out as he’d seen the falconer at school do. The owl stepped on, being careful with its enormous claws. After a few minutes of preening, he settled on one of the bedposts and went to sleep. Harry was strangely comforted to have him there. He was a reminder that Harry really did belong in this strange new world.

***

He spent his first few days in Diagon Alley wandering and looking into shops that took his fancy. He found several second-hand bookshops, where he bought books on topics from genealogy (he had to ask what that word meant) to potioneering (he didn’t want to let his newly discovered grandparents down). He also asked about the strange magical snake that had spoken to him in English. No one had heard of such a thing in any of the animal shops in the Alley, and he had been directed to the herpetology (his new favourite word, it sounded so strange) section of Flourish and Blots. There wasn’t anything helpful there either, but he found some books on magical snakes and bought them out of interest.

After that he settled down to studying. He read his new schoolbooks and investigated the other books he had bought. The genealogy books were hard going, and dull, but the snake books were fascinating. He still hadn’t found anything that would let a snake speak English, but the idea of parseltongue was exciting. Unfortunately, it seemed to have a bad reputation in England and there was no mention of any way of learning it. Harry started to wonder what made a magical snake. There were non-magical snakes that were harvested for magical ingredients, so that couldn’t be it, and there were magical snakes that appeared to have no intrinsic magic of their own, and yet be useful or necessary to certain magical rituals and potions.

There were, of course, obviously magical snakes, like Ashwinders, born out of fires, and Basilisks. Harry was entranced by the basilisk. A chicken’s egg hatched beneath a toad. Was it that simple? Did the toad have to incubate the egg, or could you take an egg that was about to be a chicken and then stick it under a toad at the last minute? If you had to get the toad to incubate it, how did you make sure the toad stayed still? What kind of toad? What kind of chicken? Did the egg have to be fertilised? How fresh did it have to be? What happened if you hatched a toad egg under a chicken? Chickens were more likely to incubate it, after all.  If Harry got a toad in the magical menagerie, and asked Dave for a really fresh chickens’ egg, could he make a basilisk? How long did they take to hatch? How long did chickens take? How cool would it be to have a pet basilisk?

*Little Owls were introduced to Britain 200 years ago and are now in decline. However, I figure that Hagrid will consider them a native. And from the point of view of stealth they are much more native than a snowy owl.