Harry wakes up in the middle of the morning. The sun is painting a big patch of light across the bottom half of his bed and at some point the dog sprawled there over Harry’s feet.
“You snore,” Harry tells it, “and you need a bath.”
The dog just rolls over.
He also needs a name. Harry thinks it over, pokes the dog, and says “Can I call you Bear? You’re so big you could be one.”
The dog cracks an eye, whuffs at him, and rolls again so his head is firmly on Harry’s legs.
That’s probably a yes.
Harry sits up and tries to think.
He’s alone in Diagon Alley for three weeks. All the shops and restaurants are right there. As far as he can tell, Fudge is doing something you generally shouldn’t, which is leaving a kid in a hotel unsupervised for three weeks, but Harry won’t be complaining a whit.
He isn’t expelled. It’s such a relief he almost can’t believe it.
“I wonder what a familiar is,” he says, because he’s always talked to Hedwig when bored and now he has a captive audience of two. “Fudge and Tom and Stan all thought that was important. Bloody hell, Ron will laugh at me. I need to go buy a book.”
Harry does not want to get mobbed, so he sets off immediately, figuring it’s still during work hours so the Alley won’t be too busy. He’s right. With one of his school robes on, his fringe pressed flat, and his face tucked down, he manages to get to Flourish & Blotts without being recognized.
In first year, he was too overwhelmed to understand a thing. Second year the store was complete chaos on account of Lockhart’s peacock routine. This is the first time Harry’s been in the bookstore with some spare time, and it’s oddly relaxing. It reminds him of hiding from Dudley in the school library.
“Excuse me,” he asks the young witch behind the counter. He’s sure to keep his head down and seem unimportant. Growing up with the Dursleys made him good at that.
“Whatchoo need, love?”
“Er—something on familiars? Only I have a pet, and someone asked if he was one…”
The witch smiles and gets up. “Muggle-born, hm? Or Muggle-raised? Don’t look at me like that, kid, it’s just a question. Didn’t anyone point you to the introduction books?”
No. No, they did not.
As it turns out, there’s a whole series of books Flourish and Blotts helpfully calls the Muggleborn package. The first book in it is called A Magical World: Introducing First-born Witches and Wizards to Magic, and it’s apparently a comprehensive guide to things for Muggleborns. There’s a little pamphlet on quills and Hogwarts: A History, which explains both why Hermione’s handwriting is so good and why she had that bloody book in the first place. The last book is written for young people and features a cheery set of people in pointy hats and purple robes on the cover; it’s about the Wizengamot and the Ministry and how the magical government works generally.
Harry buys all of them and takes them back to his room.
With room service, he figures he can hole up in here for quite a while.
It’s a revelation. Quills, for one thing. He’d sort of thought wizards were just—well, a bit backwards, as Hermione likes to say, but there’s a reason for using quills. Primary feathers from birds are how the bird flies. They have magical properties related to power and magic. Apparently, when you use a quill, it absorbs your magic and becomes very personal. It’s really rude to use another person’s quill without asking and you shouldn’t ask someone unless you know them pretty well. Also, if you haven’t got a metal nib, which Harry doesn’t, you’re supposed to trim the quills every now and then to keep them sharp. No one ever told him how to do that. Or even that he had to.
Familiars are covered in the big introduction book. Apparently they’re animals closely bonded to their owner. Not every pet becomes a familiar, but when one does, you should be able to feel its bond in your magic.
That makes Harry pause. “Feel my magic?” he says aloud, as he’s been doing now and then. “How am I supposed to do that?”
Bear gives him an unimpressed look.
Harry blushes. “Right. Keep reading.”
Meditation is how you feel your magic. The book lists several other books that will teach him about that. Harry suspects he’s going to have to go to the bookstore a lot.
Maybe Hedwig is his familiar. That would be nice. “It says even nonmagic animals can bond as a familiar, and they get smarter when they do,” he tells Bear. “Hedwig sure seems smarter than an owl should be. So do you. Maybe you were someone’s familiar once? I guess if your wizard died, you might’ve ended up alone.”
Bear puts his head on his paws with a low whine.
“Sorry, buddy,” Harry says, scratching one of his ears. “Anyway. Gotta get through this.”
On the way back to the bookstore, Harry stops for a chat with Tom, during which the innkeeper lets slip that the Trace on underage wizards’ wands doesn’t work in places like Diagon Alley, where wards and age-old enchantments disrupt it. Harry delights in casting lumos off and on as he walks to the bookstore.
This time he leaves with a wedge of books on meditation and magical theory, plus one he saw at the divination table that has a picture of a dog on it that looks exactly like Bear.
“So, are you a grim?” Harry asks Bear when he gets back. “Only I found this book about death omens and supposedly you are one.”
Bear doesn’t answer.
“Oh, well, it’s been more than twenty-four hours, so I guess you’re not going to kill me.” Harry sets the book aside. He’s taking divination. Maybe it’ll come in handy.
Oh, right, he forgot to get his school books. Dang it. Now he has to go back again.
He should really work out a disguise before someone notices him. A hat, maybe. Wizards aren’t very logical.
Disguises are found in Zonko’s, which sells little tablets you can hold under your tongue. Until they dissolve completely, they taste like different types of fruit, only a bit chalky, and you look different to other people. Harry can’t tell what he looks like with them, but it must work because the witch at Flourish and Blotts doesn’t recognize him when he goes back for his schoolbooks.
This year, for his new classes, he has to get one of the Monster Book of Monsters. A very harried clerk has to beat them back with a cane and then tie Harry’s copy shut. Ominous. At least Unfogging the Future doesn’t do anything in particular. Reading the future in a bird’s entrails is an interesting idea. Aunt Petunia likes to buy whole chickens and make Harry pluck, skin, clean, and debone them himself, probably both because they’re cheaper that way and because it keeps Harry busy for hours. If he does have to go back, it would be hilarious to announce portents of doom over a half-cleaned chicken carcass.
Intermediate Transfiguration and The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Three are also normal books. Harry spots one on animagus magic and adds it to the pile, because who wouldn’t want to turn into an animal, and then, on a whim, he goes back to the divination table and grabs a couple other titles, too. Hermione would probably say it’s woolly, but Harry thinks it’s interesting. And anyway, if magic can make a place like Hogwarts that moves around and generally defies both geometry and physics, surely making future predictions isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Bear wrestles The Monster Book of Monsters into submission within about thirty seconds flat. It cowers on the floor, and Harry feels so bad for the book he tries to pet the vaguely furry cover. To his shock, stroking the book makes it quiver, relax, and fall open, now perfectly docile.
Huh.
On his fourth day of freedom, it occurs to Harry that he should probably get started on the summer homework he hadn’t had time to do at the Dursleys’. Snape set them a really nasty essay on the properties of salamander blood, McGonagall assigned an essay on lapifors, Sprout wants two feet on deciduous trees native to the United Kingdom, and he has a star chart to fill out for Astronomy. There’s an essay for Binns on the goblin rebellion of 1752 that he almost certainly won’t read and a clever assignment for DADA that wants him to write as much as he can about the defensive capabilities of any spell they’d learned so far in any class. At least there are no assignments for Divination or Care of Magical Creatures.
Harry dashes off the History essay first to get it out of the way, and then fills out his star chart, since that part’s fairly easy. Snape’s essay turns out to be really interesting and Harry has gone back to the bookstore on day five and track down a potions book specifically about amphibians in potions just so he can expand on some of the ideas he had from reading the entry in Magical Draughts and Potions about them.
When he’s taking a break from that essay, Harry tells Bear, “It’s weird actually working hard at my summer homework.”
Bear makes a sort of questioning noise at him. Hedwig is off delivering Harry’s second attempt at getting in touch with Ron and Hermione, so it’s just the dog listening today.
“Well, last summer I couldn’t really do them, I was stuck at the Dursleys’. By the time I got up to my room I was too tired to stay up and do homework, I barely slept six hours a night as it was. And then I went to the Weasleys’ and… Ron never does homework, he kept making fun of Percy for doing his, so I felt weird, you know?”
Bear whines.
Harry sighs. Talking to Bear is easy. Almost too easy. “I know, but… I’ve never gotten good grades. Back in primary, I did better than Dudley on a test once in maths. He threw a fit and Uncle Vernon locked me in the cupboard for a week.”
Bear lets out a small growl, the fur on his neck rippling.
“Right? And then, when I went back, Miss Hamburg told everyone I admitted I cheated, and I had to sit by myself in the corner for a whole month. So I never did better than Dudley after that. And Ron’s sort of the same way… what if I do better and he doesn’t like me anymore?”
Again, Bear growls, but this time it’s a genuinely frightening sound. Harry eyes the big black dog. He’s already looking a bit healthier after a bath and a few days of decent meals, sent up by Tom, and with his teeth showing like that, he’s quite intimidating.
“What?” Harry says.
Bear jumps off the bed, grabs Amphibious Creatures for the Intermediate Potioner between his teeth, and jams it into Harry’s stomach very hard.
“Ow,” Harry complains. Bear looks contrite, but still angry. “You want me to try harder?”
Bear noses at the book, looks into Harry’s face, and whines.
Again, probably a yes.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” Harry hates himself for asking. It feels weak and stupid. He got by without friends for eleven years, what’s a few more?
But Ron was his first friend. “He sat right down on the train with me,” Harry says, “and just started talking, and showed me his rat… And then I bought all that candy and shared it, and then Malfoy came in and was a prat, and we were friends somehow. It was easy.”
Tilting his head, Bear somehow manages to convey a look of great skepticism.
“Well.” Harry sighs. “The first thing he did was demand to see my scar. It was a little weird, but not weirder than everyone shaking my hand in the Leaky. I wish he wouldn’t be jealous of me for being famous. D’you know we found this weird mirror in first year that shows your heart’s desire? Mine was to have my family back. Ron’s was to be Head Boy, quidditch captain, all that stuff, and he said in the image he was alone. And in second year he was a prat about–about me being a parselmouth. Everyone was, really! It’s just a language…”
Bear shoves his head into Harry’s lap, demanding ear scratches and being comforting. Harry complies.
“Maybe if he gets a bit less hung up on me being the Boy Who Lived,” Harry’s face screws up in distaste, “things would be—better.” He sighs. “I won’t be telling him I got the homework done already, anyway. Last year he didn’t have half his done on the first day of classes. I guess I’ll just… work harder this year and see how it goes?” Pause. “Merlin, Hermione’s going to go postal if I do better than her on anything. Actually, I wonder if I even could. I don’t think I’m stupid, but I’m not a genius, either. I definitely don’t have all these books memorized like she does.”
Bear makes a sound that’s a lot like Draco Malfoy’s contemptuous scoffs. Harry laughs and turns back to his essay.
It ends up being ten inches longer than it should be. Remembering one of Snape’s many rants about concision and getting to the point, Harry rewrites it so it’s only two inches over. Better, and he got to keep in the ideas he came up with from the extra book. He notes at the bottom that he referenced a different text just to be safe.
On day seven, Harry wraps up his homework.
On day eight, he takes his divination books and Bear off to Fortescue’s, where he gets himself a big scoop of cookie dough ice cream and Bear some concoction of ice cream mixed with crumbled waffle cones. Bear happily works away at his treat while Harry skims the books.
Divination actually seems really interesting. There’s two kinds, apparently. Seers are people like Circe or Cassandra, who have a special gift that lets them see the future. They make prophecies and have visions. Those are rare. Anyone can be a diviner, though, if they practice. The book sounds a lot like what Aunt Petunia would call new-age hooey, but honestly, magic is real, so Harry has no trouble believing that magic is everywhere and that diviners can use different tools to tap into the magic of the world. Those tools, like tarot cards, rune stones, tea leaves, and the like tell you about probabilities, not certainties.
He remembers seeing a witch in the Leaky frowning at a bunch of big colorful cards the other day. Maybe those were tarot cards? He’d definitely seen a wizard carrying three crystal balls in different colors up the stairs yesterday. It seems pretty common.
“Rune stones are my preference,” Florean Fortescue says when he brings over a sundae on the house and spots Harry’s reading material. “See?”
Harry leans in happily to peek at the leather bag Florean pulls out of his pocket. Inside are a bunch of worn little grey stones, each an irregular oval and very smooth, with some kind of black sigil carved into them.
“Do you just pull them out?”
“Sometimes. Other times, if I’ve got more time, I meditate for a bit to open my mind and throw the stones. How they land can tell you a lot. S’not always as clear as tarot, but it suits me.”
“Does the Divination class talk about runes?” Harry asks.
Florean looks thoughtful. “You know, I can’t rightly remember. Don’t think so, though.”
“Darn,” Harry says gloomily. “I didn’t sign up for Ancient Runes.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem! Just send a letter off to your Head of House and ask to add it.”
Harry hadn’t known he could do that, but Hedwig returned last night with empty claws, so he dispatches a polite letter to McGonagall the next day asking to take Ancient Runes.
At least now his handwriting is better.
Flourish & Blotts helpfully provides the third-year Ancient Runes books, which include a dictionary bigger than Harry’s head, a text on linguistics, and a third one on runic magic. Okay, this is a lot. Harry buys them all.
He wanders a bit, Bear loping at his side. It’s been a little over a week, and Harry already feels like his head is spinning with all the new things he’s been learning. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much like a proper wizard,” he tells Bear, who laughs at him, tongue lolling.
Tucked in between a tea shop and a stationery store is a little awning that reads For Diviners in curly old-fashioned script. Harry goes inside. There’s a lot going on for such a small shop. A display for crystals and stones of different sizes, another one for tarot cards, a third for crystal balls—
“Well, hello there, lad. Are you aware you’ve got a grim with you?”
Harry twitches. That woman was definitely not there a second ago. She’s maybe forty, although with witches who knows; there’s some grey in her hair and some lines on her face but she seems fit and healthy. “I—wasn’t sure,” he says finally.
“Fascinating.” She stares at Bear for a few seconds. Bear stares back, holding very still. “Interested in divination, then?”
“Er, yes.”
“You may call me Cynthia. No, don’t give me your name,” she adds when Harry opens his mouth. “Names are powerful things, lad. Shouldn’t go giving yours out to all and sundry. Know what you’re here for?”
“I was, uh, curious about rune stones. And tarot.”
Cynthia looks hard at him. “I think a set of tarot cards may find their way to you soon enough. Rune stones, though, those you could use.”
Harry’s thoroughly unsettled by this point, but he does think rune stones are interesting.
Eventually he settles on a set done in Elder Futhark. There’s several different languages, but that one seems appealing to Harry, like it wants to go home with him. It helps that Bear keeps sniffing at it with intense interest. Cynthia raises an eyebrow and informs him that he’s chosen one carved out of bone instead of stone.
When Harry asks what kind of bone, she just smiles at him and charges him thirty galleons. It’s a lot, but Harry doesn’t want to put the beautiful brown leather pouch and its collection of rune stones (bones?) back, so he pays.
Cynthia also presses a book on meditation into his hands and says to keep it, free of charge.
Harry reads the book that night. In the third chapter, it tells him something so horrifying he actually squawks.
“There are people who can read minds?” he all but shouts.
Bear looks up sharply and barks.
“Shhh,” Harry says. “No, but—this is so bad! It—what—why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”
Occlumency. Legilimency. One to guard, one to attack. There’s nothing about how to do either, although this does explain why the Muggleborn introduction book said eye contact is a form of trust in the etiquette section, since strong legilimency usually requires that.
Another sign of legilimency is the appearance of an unnatural gleam or flash in the eyes of a legilimens. Harry has to think for a few seconds before the reason why that’s familiar comes to him, and dread pools in his stomach.
“Bear… I think Dumbledore is a legilimens.”
Bear sits straight up and perks up his big ears.
“This says a legilimens gets a gleam or flash of light in their eyes! I always wondered why Dumbledore’s got that twinkle—it can’t be natural, no one else’s eyes do that. And—and sometimes I feel like he’s looking through me when we talk. Bloody hell…”
The weight of Bear in his lap when the enormous dog jumps up on the bed and flops on him is comforting.
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