Cousins

PROLOGUE

On East One Hundred Fourth and First at the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a peculiar wizened man stood with a pocket watch in hand. He was tall and thin and very old, with silver-white hair and a beard that was long enough to be tucked into his belt. Behind his crescent-moon glasses were twinkling blue eyes that stared at the apartment building before him.

He starts to rummage through the pockets of his dark purple robes, unaware that he is being watched by a particular tabby cat. Then he seems to realize that he was being watched. The man stared at the cat that was pretentiously perched on the brick and cement steps of the building. The face of Albus Dumbledore twitched into a smile and the man shakes his head.

He pulls what seems to be a silver cigarette lighter -really, a Put-Outer- from his pockets and clicks it once. The nearest street lamp blinked out, fifteen more times and all the lamps on the street were diminished.

“Fancy meeting you here, Professor McGonagall,” Dumbledore says by way of introduction.

Then, in the place of the tabby cat was a woman with thick, graying brown hair and black-rimmed glasses that matched the square rim around the tabby cat’s eyes. “How did you know?” Professor McGonagall asked.

Dumbledore gives the woman an indulgent smile, “Why, I’ve never seen a cat sit quite so stiffly.”

“You’d be stiff if you’ve been sitting on a brick wall all day long,” Professor McGonagall snaps agitatedly. She was cautious as she said so, however, her eyes roaming the near-quiet street of New York. It was a rarity that should be cherished and Dumbledore didn’t mention that he had casted a temporary ward around the place to drive away Muggles.

“All day?” Dumbledore says, clearly taken aback. “Why, shouldn't you be celebrating? I, for one, must’ve passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here alone!

“Oh yes,” Professor McGonagall said. “Everyone’s celebrating alright. To be frank, however, they should be more careful.” She looked at the rows of apartment buildings, most of which are a dull gray. “Even the Muggles have noticed the owls and the shooting stars. They’re not completely stupid after all and were bound to notice something. Shooting stars… that must be the work of Dedalus Diggle.”

“They’ve had very little to celebrate in the past year alone,” Dumbledore says with his twinkling silver eyes. “We cannot blame them for their joy.”

Professor McGonagall huffs nonetheless. “Oh, I know that. An odd thing it would be, however- if the day that You-Know-Who disappears, the Muggles find out about us.”

“Quite,” Dumbledore muses. “Quite.” Then in a burst of eccentricity, he pulls something out of his pocket, two packets of candies. “Lemon drop?”

“What?” Professor McGonagall says started, for she did not expect the sudden question.

“Lemon drop,” Dumbledore explains patiently. “It’s a Muggle sweet that I’m rather fond of.”

“No thank you,” Professor McGonagall says coldly. “Although, I must say, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Professor McGonagall continued, staring at Dumbledore unflinchingly, “I did not expect you to be here. I would’ve thought you would bring Harry to the Dursley.”

Dumbledore shook his head and admitted. “If I did not know the existence of Sally Evans-Jackson, perhaps I would’ve done so.”

Professor McGonagall looked appalled, for the Dursleys are a nasty people, all shrill voices and haughty stances, those people. Their hatred of magic was so strong, that if magic was the only way to save themselves and the entire world, they wouldn’t even think of it as a solution. “What?”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, that is a rather terrible idea.” He checks his watch and hums. “Hagrid’s late.”

Around the same time Dumbledore uttered those words, a low rumbling sound cut though the mostly-silent night. It was a flying blue motorbike, and as soon as the bike landed, a giant of a man stepped out, holding a bundle of pink blankets.

“Professor Dumbledore,” the man says with a thick accent that was rather hard to understand for a normal person.

“Hagrid,” Dumbledore says pleasantly.

Professor McGonagall raises an eyebrow, as if she wasn’t expecting the half-giant to be the one picking up Harry. To be fair, however, a half-giant is not exactly the first person an ordinary wizard would choose to take care of a baby.

“Brought little Harry over, he’s asleep now,” says Hagrid gruffly.

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled, and took the bundle of blankets with a babe nestled within it out of Hagrid’s arms. “Oh? How was the trip?’

“Oh, it’s fine. Screamed a little while crossing the ocean but turn out ‘e was just hungry. A nice bottle of milk and he went right back to sleep.”

“And where in the name of Merlin did you get the motorbike from?’ McGonagal asked, looking rather frazzled. She looked ready to explode and berate Hagrid, which was again, rather fair considering everything.

“Oh! Young Sirius Black gave it to me for getting ‘arry here.”

“Really?”

“Ya, I met him holdin’ the poor boy at the ‘ouse. Rocking him to sleep when I got ‘ere, he was. I said Dumbledore asked for little Harry an’ Sirius lent me ‘his bike and bid goodbye.”

“He must have been heartbroken over the Potters' deaths,” Professor McGonagall says with a shake of his head.

“Oh he was! He was tryin’ to keep his tears from fallin’ and scarin’ Harry here. Gave me his bike and he left. Said he gotta go find a rat or somethin’.”

“Oh, he must be talking about Peter. I’ve heard rumors that he and his friends were animagus and that Peter was a rat, he must have gone to console his friend. Poor Peter, he must’ve been devastated,” Professor McGonagall said.

“I dunno,” Hagrid said. “He sounded angry.”

“Well, we best get going now,” Dumbledore says. “I must drop Harry off at his aunt’s.”

“Headmaster,” Professor McGonagall whispers urgently. “Are you absolutely sure that this is the best course of action? Harry could still be given to a magical family. Merlin! There’s Sirius. Remus! Peter! And all the other members of the Order!”

Dumbledore remembers the promise that Lily and James made him swear, only a month after Harry was born. He remembered helping Lily and James research on ways to protect Harry, painstakingly drawing protection runes over his nursery and over the room that would one day be Harry’s. The only way that the final, last-resort protection would last, is that Harry stays with a blood relative of Lily, who used her blood as the binding spell to activate the runes.

“I’m afraid that I cannot do so,” Dumbledore says. “If he stays in the Wizarding World, there will be Death Eaters that will search for Harry in order to exact vengeance for vanquishing Voldemort-” Professor McGonagall blanches at that, “-and when , not if, they find him, they will surely kill him. Even so, however, the boy will never have an ordinary childhood.”

Professor McGonagall sighs. “Perhaps you’re right. I shall see you tomorrow, then, Headmaster.” 

Dumbledore nods and Professor McGonagall swishes her wand. A crack! later and she was gone, leaving three on the streets of New York. Hagrid says his goodbyes to Harry with a wounded howl before leaving to return the motorbike to young Sirius Black.

Dumbledore, produced a note from the pockets of his robes, and opened the doors into the apartment building with a spell. He navigated through the hallways, stopping right in front of Sally Jackson’s apartment. Dumbledore slipped the note inside the pink blankets that enveloped Harry Potter and with a last look, hoping good luck to the young boy, apparated away.

That morning, when Sally Jackson opened her doors, she would find her nephew with a letter in hand, asking her to raise the boy. She would take Harry in, and raise him alongside her own son, offering the boy a life that the boy would never have with the Dursleys.

AN: so... this is just to get the people's reaction.. If it's well-received, then I'll continue it. If not... whatever. Back into the bin like so many of my fanfictions.