The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Chapter One
Shaving one's face is a savage kind of ritual some men would say, a daily battle requiring the sharpest blade technology can produce, and ending on many days with that bloody badge of manhood - the nick. Harry Potter wasn't thinking of anything like that, though, as he rooted through the medicine cabinet looking for shaving cream and a razor. He had woken up really hungry for the first time in a couple of weeks; for the first time, in fact, since Lord Voldemort had appeared at Kings Cross station and tried to kill him and his Aunt Petunia as well.
He had gone downstairs hoping that the gleaming high tech kitchen his Aunt guarded as obsessively as a dragon guards its treasure hoard would be empty. Unfortuntaely, she had been there, dressed in one of those outfits she wore to impress people. Today's was a silk twinset with the pearls that were de rigeur. Although it was a Saturday, Uncle Vernon was also in a business suit, complete with his maroon and orange school tie and so, remarkably, was Dudley.
Aunt Petunia took one look at Harry's messy hair and sleepy face and shrieked. "How dare you come down here looking like that! The people from Social Services are coming and you show your face looking like that! Get up! Go and wash and comb your hair for once!" Her shriek was louder than the whistle of a kettle at the boil.
"I'm hungry," Harry protested. "They're not here yet."
He had heard enough about the Social Service people to give him the willies for a lifetime. Dudley was glaring at him from his piggy eyes and from the sneaky gleam in them, he was still trying to find a way to blame Harry for his gang's Anti-social behavior last summer--the reason the Social Service people were coming to Privet Drive at all.
"You heard your Aunt," Uncle Vernon blustered. "Get up and dress decently for once. And shave that mess off your face. It makes you look like the freak you are."
So Harry had slogged back up the stairs and showered and tried unsuccessfully to flatten his jet-black hair into obedience. He seized the can of shaving cream and looked at it doubtfully.
Not being given to staring at himself in the mirror much, he hadn't noticed that he had the beginnings of a true beard and mustache. It gave him a start to see himself that way. The face that looked at him out of the mirror was still too thin and the eyes were still bright green. The lightning scar still showed through the fringe that floated above his forehead and the glasses were the very same round ones he had had when he first went to Hogwarts at the age of eleven.
But there was no question about it, the jet-black fuzz growing on his face gave him the look of a pirate in training. It would have passed for fashionable in certain circles of the entertainment world, or in the gossip magazines his Aunt read on the sly. But in Privet Drive- stuffy, respectable, tidy, suburban Privet Drive- anything more than the mustache Uncle Vernon sported was altogether too...dangerous.
Shaving was a far messier, more difficult and more uncomfortable affair than Harry had realized. By the time he was done, his clean shirt was wet and full of shaving foam, his face felt raw, and he had a tiny drip of blood on his chin where he had nicked himself. He splashed cold water on his face and succeeded in getting himself damper than he had been. With a groan of annoyance, he wished he was already seventeen, so he could do magic outside of school. He wished he lived in a wizard household with a Dad who could teach him the spell for shaving.
There must be one he thought. He could appreciate why Dumbledore had simply let his beard grow though. It was one more thing to take up time in the morning. On the other hand, the face that looked back at him now was comfortably familiar without the fuzz, and he supposed he could put up with shaving the Muggle way until he turned seventeen.
He went back to his room to find something 'decent' to wear. He opened his trunk and poked through his school uniforms, his robes, and his Muggle clothes looking for something that fit. His robes were too short, but out of the question anyway. As he had grown inches more again, nothing fit. His dress shirts from his uniform were too short in the sleeves. His pants, without exception, were too short. He finally settled on an old pair of jeans that had once been Dudley's.
They were actually almost tight since they were at least three or four years old and Dudley had probably not been able to wear them since he had been thirteen or so. And they were inches too short. With a sigh, he pulled on a pair of socks and his trainers, which were too tight as well as full of holes, and settled for wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up on top. He flattened his fringe again and went down hoping he'd pass inspection sufficiently to get some breakfast. Maybe, he thought hopefully, he could grab a bite and escape before the Social Services people showed up.
Uncle Vernon was buried in the morning paper. Dudley was glued to the telly, and Aunt Petunia was in the dining room polishing the already shining mahogany table. Harry poured a cup of coffee for himself and snagged a bowl of Fruit n Bran cereal thinking wistfully of the eggs and bacon and toast and everything that he might be having if he were at Hogwarts instead of here. Since Dudley's transformation into a boxing champion, old-fashioned filling things like bacon and eggs had been banished from Privet Drive in favor of salads and cottage cheese, celery sticks and dry broiled fish. He thought he ought to write Mrs. Weasley and plead for a meat pie or fruit cake to tide him over until they came to release him from his yearly summer confinement. He thought rebelliously that he was never returning to Privet Drive once he turned seventeen and was officially on his own.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Get the door, Dudley," Uncle Vernon said.
"Make Harry get the door," Dudley answered. Harry rolled his eyes and started to get up. Somethings never changed.
"Not him," Aunt Petunia said. "We don't want the Social Services people seeing him first thing." She gave the shiny table one more swipe and went to open the door herself.
"My goodness," Aunt Petunia said. "Scott Evans. Whatever are you doing here? And who is this? Your son?" Dudley looked at the door in alarm and Harry with curiosity. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and went to greet their unexpected visitors.
"Come in, then," he said genially, and Harry saw with surprise that they were ushering in Mark Evans and his dad. Had they forgot that it was Mark Evans whom Dudley had beat up and who had reported Dudley's gang to the police? Mr. Evans was a tall man with a kind, craggy sort of face and hazel eyes.
"Been a while, Petunia," he said. "I haven't seen you since the last Evans reunion, and that was, what, about seventeen years ago, wasn't it?"
"What are you doing here?" Aunt Petunia asked again.
"We moved into the area about a year or so ago. Just thought it was about time to pay a social call on my cousin, you know."
"Cousin?" Harry couldn't help asking. He had been under the impression that Aunt Petunia had no more relatives left.
"Kissing cousin, more like," Mr. Evans answered. "Something like eight or ninth cousin a few times removed. You could hardly call us related, except we used to have these enormous Evans family gatherings with every one remotely connected, so that's how Petunia and I know each other."
"Well, do sit down," Petunia said nervously. Harry could see she was watching the time and figuring out how to be polite to her "cousin" and get him out of the house before the Social Service people arrived.
"Get some coffee, boy," Uncle Vernon said to Harry, "and cups for our guests."
"That's okay, Vernon," Mr. Scott said easily. "We've had breakfast already, and it's really Harry we came to see." Everyone stared at him. Nobody ever came to see Harry at Number Four, Privet Drive.
Harry looked at Mark Evans, who flushed a bit, apprently with embarrassment and said, "It's my homework, you see. We've got all this homework to do over the holidays and I don't really get all of it."
"I'm not much help with this stuff," Mr. Evans said, "so we thought maybe Harry could give Mark a bit of help. Seeing they go to the same school and all." He smiled at everyone and added ruefully, "I never figured I'd be unable to help my own kid with his homework after going to university and medical school but there it is. I took a look at it and haven't a clue."
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were pale with horror. Another wizard in the house. And someone in the neighborhood who knew there was a wizard at Number Four! Their worst nightmare had come true.
Harry said quickly, "No problem. I'll be glad to help," as if other wizards showed up at Number Four every day. If he acted as if this was quite normal, perhaps his Aunt and Uncle might be forced to behave politely, too.
"Ooh, thanks, Harry," Mark said. He dove into his school bag and brought out a sheet of paper covered in diagrams.
"What is that?" Uncle Vernon asked.
"Beats me," Dr. Evans said. "It looks like physics, only it's not any physics I've ever seen."
"Transfiguration," Mark answered.
Uncle Vernon's face was turning purple and Aunt Petunia's was white, but Dr. Evans hadn't noticed. He was looking at the paper with great interest. Harry nodded to Mark to sit down at the table and glanced at the paper. Mark was looking at it anxiously and chewing on his pen.
"I think I've got this bit right, but I wasn't sure. And I don't want McGonagall to think I'm a slacker, you know. She's awful strict, and being she's head of our House, I don't want to mess up in her class."
Harry grinned. "I don't blame you. She is strict, but she's much nicer than you think, really." Harry took a look at Marks' work and held out a hand for the pen.
He frowned and Mark said anxiously, "It's all wrong, isn't it?"
"Not at all," Harry said. He crossed out a small lambda at the corner of the diagram and changed it to a small delta instead. "There," he said, "you just had a minor mistake in the formula. Now it works."
"Formula?" Dudley asked with only a small sneer. "I thought you just wave your...you know." Harry felt the corner of his mouth twicth a bit, but he answered quite seriously, "Well, we're not supposed to actually do any magic out of school till we're seventeen you know." He saw the faint flare of panic in his cousin's eyes. And Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunia's as well. He'd be seventeen in two weeks and they'd have to be fearful he'd use magic on them. Not that he would. He still would be in dreadful trouble for using it on Muggles, no matter how annoying they were.
He turned back to Mark and did smile sympathetically. "I always thought it was too bad they had that rule. I find it much easier to understand the theory when I get to do the practical stuff as well."
"You have trouble understanding stuff sometimes?" Mark asked with astonishment.
"Yeah," Harry admitted. "I'm not the best in my class you know. That's Hermione. She's the one who gets top scores in everything."
"But...you're the one who..." Mark stopped and whispered, "you're the one who beat Vol...You Know Who."
"Voldemort?" Harry said.
"Yeah," Mark said sheepishly. "I can't remember not to say his name, and Jonathan and Meg are always on me to shut up when I do."
"I can't remember not to either," Harry said. "And anyway, Dumbledore said you should never be afraid of a name. So I don't worry about it anymore."
"Just who is this Voldemort fellow, anyway?" Dr. Evans asked. "Sounds like a real nasty type, if you ask me."
Aunt Petunia made a movement, and gave a small hiss and Harry knew she didn't want him talking about it. But the time had come and gone when Harry worried about that. "Voldemort," Harry said, "is the one who murdered my Mum and Dad."
"Lily?" Dr. Evans said. Harry gaped at him.
"You knew her?" he asked. "You knew my Mum?"
"Sure I did," Dr. Evans said. He looked at Petunia and said, "I thought she died in a car accident."
Aunt Petunia said defiantly, "That's what we told everyone. After all, you can't go around telling the neighbors that an evil wizard killed your sister. They'd think you were mad." Then she looked at Uncle Vernon and shut up.
"I can see your point," Dr. Evans said. "It's true, most people would, if they didn't have a witch or wizard in the family."
Mark was looking at Harry and he said, "Sorry. I didn't mean to, you know, upset anybody."
"Never mind," Harry said. He didn't want to talk about Voldemort, but he did want to hear more about his Mum, and he did not want to be left alone with the Dursleys just now. So he said, "What else did you need help with?"
"I don't get it," Dudley interrupted. His face was screwed up with the effort of thinking. "That," he said, pointing to the diagram on Mark's Transfiguration homework, "looks like the kind of calculus problem, or physics that we'd get in A level exams. I thought the stuff you do is...like--" Dudley glanced at his aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon before finishing, "like supernatural, you know. Freaky, like spirits and things."
Harry glanced briefly at Mark and saw that the young boy was waiting for an answer. This was, he thought, the very reason wizards had kept themselves secret for all those centuries. Muggles associated magic with demons and tales of horror and the unnatural and feared what they couldn't see.
Uncle Vernon was looking ready to explode so he said quickly, "Erm...not exactly." He looked at Mark again and said, "What's the definition of magic? McGonagall makes us write it down first thing on every test." Mark perked up and recited by heart, "Magic is a naturally occuring force in the universe that may be drawn upon and manipulated by those with talent to create a physical transformation in the natural world."
Harry nodded. "Precisely." He looked at his aunt and uncle and at Dr. Evans to see if they had understood it.
"You make that...that unnaturalness sound like electricity or gravity," Uncle Vernon sputtered.
"That's right," Harry said quickly. He wondered whether he'd be in trouble for even discussing this with Muggles, but no owl showed up to drop a warning on his head. He supposed he'd actually have to do magic to be in trouble then.
"But you can see electricity or gravity, you can measure it," Dr. Evans said.
"Now you can," Harry answered. "But there was a time when people couldn't." He shrugged. "Who knows," he added, "maybe someday even Muggles will be able to detect magic if they could invent the right kind of machine. But I doubt it'll be anytime soon. 'Cause magic is sort of like radiation. It interferes with their normal operation."
"Nonsense," Uncle Vernon said. He looked at Dr. Evans and waved a hand at him, "and you...you're a doctor, a man of science. How can you listen to him spout that rubbish?"
Dr. Evans considered Uncle Vernon very calmly, as if he were a particularly interesting specimen for observation and ansered, "As a man of science, I am trained to be objective about what I see. And frankly, I have no other answer for what my son can do. What Harry just said seems be the reasonable answer to a hypothesis: what would permit certain people to do things like levitation, or physical transformations without mechanical force? If one eliminates any irrational superstition from the equation, then a natural force, which we can’t detect, makes sense. The fact that the word magic has other historical and psycho-religious taboo connotations doesn't alter the fact that it is natural. If one called it something else, physicists would write papers about it." Dr. Evans seemed rather amused and Harry decided he liked the doctor a lot. Harry judged by the pinched expression on Aunt Petunia's face that they wouldn't get much more out of this visit.
"Did you need help with anything else?" he asked again. Mark hastily pulled out another parchment.
"History," he said dolefully. "We have to write what each of these things are, but I can't find them in my book and I don't have access to a decent magical library." Harry pulled the list toward him. He couldn't remember doing that particular assignment, but then his books had been locked in the cupboard under the stairs the summer after his first year and he'd spent part of it locked in his bedroom until Ron and Fred and George had rescued him in their Dad's flying Ford Anglia. He spotted a few items he knew though.
"The Philospher's Stone," he said. "That’s easy. That's what Alchemists try to make. The Philospher's Stone can aid in the transformation of base metals into gold."
"Rubbish," Uncle Vernon said again. "Fairy tales."
Harry ignored him. He had held the Philospher's Stone in his hand, not once, but twice. And it had nearly gotten him killed both times. He shivered and added, "The Philospher's Stone is also used to make the Elixir of Life. If you drink the Elixir, you can live forever, or practically forever."
"Rubbish," Uncle Vernon said again. Harry felt his temper rise just a shade.
"What exactly do you think Voldemort was after," he said coldly, "when he showed up in the train station two weeks ago? What do you think it was that smashed under the Richmond Express when he murdered Pettigrew to get it?" Uncle Vernon turned blue and Aunt Petunia turned white. Neither one answered. It was the first time anyone of them had mentioned Voldemort's latest attack. Dr. Evans was looking a bit worried himself, and Harry regretted losing his temper.
He went on quickly to the next thing that he thought might be less controversial. "Caliburn," he said, "also known incorrectly as Excalibur. The magical sword of Merlin." Dr. Scott's expression immediately changed from worry to fascination. "I thought that was King Arthur's sword, given to him by the Lady of the Lake." Mark bounced up and said, "Oh, I know that one. Actually, King Arthur didn't get the sword from the lady of the Lake. That's just a fiction. Merlin actually was the one that made it for him and it was a real magical sword that burned like fire if anyone but the King touched it."
"Too bad that one's lost," Harry added. He wondered if Merlin's sword would have really killed Voldemort, or would the same thing have happened as did with the Sword of Gryffindor. Mark looked at Harry with something like awe, which made Harry twitch uncomfortably.
"Do you think Caliburn was like the Sword you used last spring, the Sword of Gryffindor? That was amazing, that was--" Everybody was staring at Harry now and Mark had stopped speaking, perhaps because he had seen Harry freeze up.Harry shrugged again and said, "I dunno."
Resolutely avoiding everyone's stares at the mention of him using a magical sword, Harry jumped at the next item on the list he could identify.
"Gubraithian fire," he read. "That sounds familiar." He cudgeled his brain trying to think where he knew that one from. Then memory sparked and he said, "I do know that. Gubraithian Fire is everlasting fire. Only very few wizards can make that."
"Everlasting fire," Mark repeated.
"Rubbish," Uncle Vernon said once more. "Everlasting fire, Merlin and King Arthur!" He glared at all of them. "This is the modern world. Men of business know what its about. Progress. Computers. Technology. Not...freaks doing magic!"
Harry couldn't think which was more likely to happen: Uncle Vernon having a stroke as the veins on his face were fairly popping, or Dr. Evans flattening him for implying his kid was a freak. He rather hoped for the latter. Whatever would have happened though was interrupted by another knock on the door.
Aunt Petunia started wringing her hands. "It's so nice to see you Scott," she said in that artificial tone that really meant she hoped he'd never return. "We've another visitor now. Perhaps Harry can visit you another day." Harry stared at her for a moment in surprise. Then he realized she propbably didn't mean it and was only saying that to get rid of the Evanses before they realized the next visitors were people from the Social Services. Somehow, Aunt Petunia had ushered Mark and Dr. Evans out the door before Harry could even ask any more about his Mum.
"Come and visit anytime," Mark called out as they left.
