Unofficial Portkey Archive

With Malice Aforethought

S. P. Smith

The muggle woman was now seated on one of Aunt Petunia's satin divans, her red coat folded across her lap, and a rapidly melting bag of frozen peas clasped to her bruised right arm. Petunia, almost as confused and just as angry looking, sat on the divan opposite her, a second plastic sack of vegetables braced against the back of her head. The various members of the Order of the Phoenix were perched throughout the room. This included a very stiff and very unhappy Sturgis Podmore slouched in a Queen Anne wingback near the picture window. Harry sat alongside his aunt, trying not to bleed onto the immaculate sofa.

"Magic." The muggle repeated still a little dazedly. "There are real magicians in the world. And they're muggers."

"I told you! I'm not a mugger!" Sturgis stopped to rub his face. His jaw was still hurting from where he'd collapsed into the Rolls' hood ornament.

"Um, isn't she the muggle?" Tonks asked from her position by the window, behind Harry.

"Mugger, not muggle." Lupin then turned his attention to the muggle in question. "And wizard, not magician."

Harry, having at some point in the conversation decided he would feel better if he kept his wand in his hand, spoke up. "Let's get back on track, please. This woman here-"

"Miss Morgan Ann Elizabeth Aedernmas, Em-Eff-See-See," interrupted the muggle with the red coat and copper-red hair.

"-Is a social worker," Harry continued. "Mine, apparently. And every time she's come 'round Privet Drive for the last fifteen years, you've stunned her, Obliviated her memories so she forgot she was supposed to be her, and sent her on her way?"

"Oh no," replied Sturgis, stopping massaging his jaw long enough to answer. "She's only been coming round for the last few years. 'Fore that, 'twas some old bloke. A Cravis, or Crabbit, I think. Reckon he musta retired by now."

"Lewis Crevit and yes, he retired due to encroaching Alzheimer's," responded Ms. Aedernmas testily.

Harry tried to wave them to silence, but winced when the cut on his left arm reopened. "Wait a minute. Why would the Order want to keep a social worker away? I mean, they're supposed to be dead helpful, right? And where do you come off attacking muggles, anyway? I thought that was Voldemort's idea of fun."

Almost everyone in the room winced at this. Remus spoke up first. "Actually, that's two excellent questions. Alastor, Sturgis? Anyone willing to elucidate?"

"Nobody in the Order is 'attacking muggles,' Potter!" Alastor jumped in first, his magical blue eye spinning slowly around the room.

Morgan rose immediately to the bait, leaning forward as she spoke. "All evidence to the contrary."

Sturgis took up the argument, waving Moody to silence. "We didn't attack you! If Harry hadn't interrupted, you wouldn't have remembered anything about it."

"Oh, well that makes it all better then!" Morgan's thin, high voice deepened as she worked herself to a yell. "Assaulting me is fine, so long as afterwards you rape my mind to make me forget, eh? Yes, that sounds just fine to me! I'll tell you; come near me again, I'll wipe your memories! I don't need magic! I've got a skillet! You son of a-"

"I think," Remus began, raising his hands and his voice to try to forestall a second duel for the day. "I think that Sturgis was trying to say that he did what he did with good intentions and not for sport. And what Ms. Aedernmas was trying to say was that the intentions don't matter much when you are struck from behind and your memory modified."

Sturgis and Morgan glared at each other, both clearly clenching their jaws to avoid continuing the argument. Tonks stepped forward, and leaned over Harry's shoulder to speak. When he pulled sharply away from her, shock and hurt were written clearly on her mobile features. But before anyone noticed , she continued as though nothing happened. "Okay all, I get that we've got a disagreement about what the good guys are 'sposed to be doin' with their time. But I still want to know why you were doing it in the first place."

"Sort of obvious isn't it, Tonks?" Sturgis nearly snarled it, still in a miserable mood. "Harry Potter is only protected from Voldemort if he stays here with this miserable excuse for a family. If Child Welfare pokes their nose in here, they'd send him somewhere else. Ergo, he wouldn't be protected from either diddley or from squat."

Tonks screwed up her face into an indelicate frown. "That's sorta' stupid, Sturgis. I mean, I don't think muggle social workers whisk kids off with no reason."

The silence following her words was echoing. Aunt Petunia went white and stared at the floor, Harry mirroring her. Lupin chewed his cheek, and the anger drained from Podmore's face. Only Moody didn't react. Tonks blinked rapidly, and looked from face to face. She dropped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry. Mate. Is there a reason this muggle here would want to take you away?"

"Not really." Harry's voice was a tiny thing.

"Would you please stop calling me 'muggle?' It's just a teensy bit annoying." Morgan snapped at Tonks. Her voice gentled as she turned to Harry. "And it's hard for... Tonks... here to believe you when you're looking down like that. Why don't you look at us and tell us."

When Harry looked up, it was at Aunt Petunia. She at least had the grace not to meet his even gaze. "I'm fine, really."

Morgan swallowed. "Mrs. Dursley? If you could step outside with me-"

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" Sturgis exclaimed exasperatedly. "We're not going to dance around this all night. Everyone already knows they lock him in the cupboard and smack him around."

The response was immediate and simultaneous.

"We gave him Dudley's second bedroom years ago!"

"Uncle Vernon hardly ever hits me!"

"Well I sure didn't know!"

A piercing whistle shut down all speech. Morgan removed her fingers from her mouth as everyone's attention returned to her. She spoke and moved with a calm too complete to be anything but a facade. "Am I to understand that Harry has been in an abusive environment for years, this magician's conference of yours has known about it, and none of you have done anything about it?"

"I'm fine," Harry snapped. "Would you please stop talking about me like this."

Remus leaned forward. "The last time I'd seen you, you had a split lip. At the time, I thought it was from working out, or practicing Quidditch, or something like that. Harry, look at me. Did your Uncle hit you."

Harry tried to answer. "Nothing... It's not... You have to understand-"

Remus's gentle face hardened as Harry stammered to find an excuse. He rose to his feet with canine agility, stalking Aunt Petunia, who recoiled into the hard cushions of her divan. "How could you allow this, Petunia? I knew you were jealous of Lily, but this? If it had been you and Vernon who died, can you imaging Lily and James treating your boy like this?"

Harry looked from Remus' sad, angry face to Petunia's withered, silently crying eyes. "You two know each other?"

Remus turned back to the teenager, dropping into a crouch to meet him eye to eye. "I was there when your parents got married, remember. Apparently, your Aunt is as foul an excuse for a person as she is a failure as your family. But your parents would never have left her out of their wedding, Harry."

"Oh." Harry bled a little onto the sofa. He looked down at the red spot for moment, then shrugged as if to say, 'who cares?' "But the rest of you... the rest of the Order of the Phoenix? You all knew what it was like living here?"

Sturgis looked once into Harry's flashing green eyes, and suddenly became very interested in the carpet. Mad-Eye Moody just nodded. "Better this than Voldemort."

"Okay." Morgan drew herself up to her full height, not much taller than Harry himself. "We're done here, I should think. Harry, if you could please wait in my car? I need to talk to everyone else for a moment."

The room exploded into action. Sturgis and Moody drew wands, leveling them at Morgan's chest. Harry leapt to his feet, blocking their line of sight with his body, wand at the ready. Petunia shrieked and tried to hide behind a tasseled throw pillow. Remus moved shoulder to shoulder with Harry, hands open in front of him. Tonks took one step, caught a trailing cord for a floor lamp over one boot toe, and went down in the corner in a tangle of limbs. The floor lamp was whipped to the ground after her, and the bulbs exploded in a flash. This plunged the room into a dim half-light.

Remus spoke first. "Lets all just sit back down, put the wands away, and talk. All right, then?"

"Remus, Harry can't leave this house," Moody growled.

Sturgis shrugged. "It's not that I want to be doing this. But she can't take him, and she can't know about us. You know that."

"You're not hurting her!" Harry shifted nervously on his feet as he held his wand on the two Aurors. "Just get out of here."

"It's what has to be done, boy." Both Moody's eyes were fixed upon Harry. "It's for the greater good."

"Now you sound like Voldemort." Harry laughed coldly as the two wizards flinched. "He seems to think that hurting people who can't defend themselves is 'the greater good' too. Is that what you want to be? A Death Eater with a badge?"

Sturgis paled at this, but spoke pleadingly nonetheless. "Harry, be reasonable. We have to wipe her memories. We can't let muggles know about our world. We're talking about the International Wizarding Secrecy Act."

"Excuse me?" Everyone turned fractionally from their drawn wands, to look at Aunt Petunia as she peeked out from around the edge of her pillow. "I'm normal, and I know about you frea- your kind."

"The sodding cow has a point," came the exclamation from the floor, where Tonks was still struggling to extricate herself from the murdered floor lamp.

"Petunia Dursley," Remus spoke her name as though it were an epithet. "Is, despite the magnitude of her personal failings, Harry's muggle guardian. Like any muggle-born wizard, she knows about us because she's, in theory at least, raising one of us."

"Perfect," came the high voice from over Harry's shoulder. "I'll be removing him from the appalling lack of care it seems that all of you have managed to provide thus far. Both I, and the NSPCC care house where he will be placed will be caring for him. Ergo, it should be acceptable that I keep my memories."

"Um, thanks, I think," Harry called over his shoulder. "I don't think that's going to work, though."

Remus turned, one hand gesturing to the two Aurors, the other held up in appeasement to the social worker. "Whatever ethical issues I may have with my colleagues here, they have a point. You absolutely cannot take Harry from this house, Ms. Aedernmas. Very simply, Voldemort will kill him."

"Here's the part I don't get." Morgan poked Remus in the shoulder sternly. "Who is this Voldemort, and why are you trying to protect Harry from him instead of from his Aunt and Uncle?"

"I can answer that, miss." Harry's bright green eyes didn't leave the two Aurors as he spoke. "Vernon Dursley is a bully, and he and my Aunt hate me because I'm different than they are. They don't mind locking me up and feeding me through a cat flap in the door to avoid having me at their table, but that's about the limit of their creativity. Besides, I'm allowed to use magic is self defense, so if it ever got out of hand, I think I'd just stun them and leave them alongside the M3 for someone to pick up.

"Voldemort is a Dark wizard, and utterly evil. He's nearly immortal, and wants to finish it up. He wants all us wizards born to muggles dead, and everyone else cowering in fear. He wants to take over the world, and thanks to a daft Oracle, he's been trying to kill me since before I was born. He's also too damn powerful, and has a horde of Death Eater followers. Now, my mother died trying to protect me, and her blood still does. So if I live with Aunt Petunia, Voldemort can only come after me at school. So that's the choice; the Dursley's or a red-eyed nose-less monster. I pick the Dursley's. But only barely."

The house creaked softly into the silence following this speech. Morgan finally came up with a response. "Assuming that was at all accurate, this will be very hard to write up."

Moody snorted. "If anything, the boy understated things."

Morgan peeked out over Remus' shoulder. "Voldemort or the Dursley's?"

"Yup."

"Okay. Here's my offer." Morgan gestured at the stand-off in front of her. "You all stop pointing sticks at each other, or at me. Since Harry is a minor, and a citizen of Great Britain, then magician or not he's our responsibility. The Dursley's have demonstrated their inability to be parents without supervision, and you lot aren't showing more swot at this, either. As his welfare representative, that makes Harry's dispensation my responsibility. Now, in his best interests, I can't remove him to a better place than this, nor can I really report this whole 'evil wizard' bit. So I agree to do my spot for his welfare whilst also keeping him here and hiding the whole magic thing from my supervisors. Agreed?"

Moody's electric blue eye rolled in it's socket, checking the room before giving Morgan a once-over. At long last he tucked his wand into his sleeve, and gestured Sturgis to do the same. "Agreed."

As Harry tucked his wand into his pocket, a delicate hand took his shoulder, and turned him about. He found himself facing a pair of bright blue eyes up close as Morgan peered intently at him. "You're old enough to have a say too, Harry. How does all this sound to you?"

Harry narrowed his eyes, his gaze moving from one of her eyes to the other. "What if I don't like it? What if I decide to tell you to leave?"

Morgan tugged on her earlobe. "It's not exactly what I'd normally be able to do in this sort of thing, but I guess I'd leave. Hopefully I could convince the wand brigade here to leave my memories intact so I could check in on you from time to time. You know, make sure you weren't sold to pirates, or buried in the back yard or anything. Is that more what you want?"

Harry looked at his Aunt Petunia, then at Remus Lupin standing next to him. He spoke slowly, haltingly. "No, I think. I think your idea seems pretty good."

"Alright then." Morgan smiled and patted him on his uninjured shoulder. "Let's get that cut looked after, and then I suspect we'll have a bit of talking to do."

* * *

In some ways, the summer passed as it always did for Harry. Half the time was spent in dragging, tedious boredom while he marked day after day off on his calendar, praying the first of September might come early this year. The other half moved too quickly, not handing him near enough time to get everything done before he fell into bed at night. Other than these constants, Harry's summer was very different from his previous ones.

Oddly enough, his efforts to get prepared to fight Voldemort were fast becoming the most normal and pleasant parts of his days. He awoke early, and didn't have to think about anything for a couple of hours. Each night, he ran until he was too tired to dream. Every now and again he spotted an Order member watching over him and they exchanged sneers. But for the most part, it was mindless activity.

The Dursley's were in a strange way, worse than ever. They prepared food for him three times a day. A week after Harry first met the social worker, Aunt Petunia left a shopping bag on his bed full of new clothes. They all smiled at him, in the worst and most strained manner possible. It was patently clear; the Dursley household hated Harry more deeply than ever before. They were now so scared of being arrested for endangering the welfare of a child that they forced smiles whenever Harry was in sight. It drove him to hide from them more that ever; at least when they were openly hostile they were honest about it. The quiet fear and hatred directed his way, coupled with Aunt Petunia's newly found servility made Harry want to scream. He'd taken to checking them for tattoos on their forearms surreptitiously as they ate.

As a result of his mistaken identity duel, Harry had received a summons from Mafalda Hopkirk from the Improper Use of Magic Office. Again he was summoned to the full Wizengamot, to be reprimanded for using magic outside of school despite being an underage wizard. This was, in Harry's opinion, an exercise in deliberate and premeditated humiliation. The fact that he had good reason for his actions, combined with Dumbledore's return to his position of High Mugwump of the Wizengamot, meant that Harry's complete exoneration was assured. However Ms. Morgan Aedernmas insisted on accompanying him as his care representative. Explaining why the Order had been Obliviating muggle social workers meant recounting, in excruciating detail, his treatment for the last fifteen years at the hands of the Dursley's. The room full of witches and wizards, all staring down at Harry from their benches high above, had agreed to Ms. Aedernmas' position, that he required an outside party to represent his interests. As that she already knew about the wizarding world, and it was her career in the muggle world, the Wizengamot approved her to act as his case worker. Harry paid little attention as some kind of agreement was brokered between the muggle Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Magic's Muggle Affairs Department.

As a practical upshot, this meant Harry now had an invasive guardian angel he never asked for bending his ear once a week. Every time her grey Rolls Royce Phantom VI growled up the street, Harry winced. And it wasn't her behavior he disliked; she seemed to hit the right note with him on every conversation. She never mollycoddled him, or wanted to know about his feelings. She didn't fuss over his appearance, or try feed him like Mrs. Weasley would have. Nor did she offer delicate advice and concern like Remus. Rather she spoke directly, honestly, and more than a little sense of humor. She asked only after what Harry was doing, and seemed to just want to catch up on a good conversation for an hour or two each week. It reminded him of how Sirius used to talk him. Harry couldn't quite put into words how he felt about this, except to note that he didn't like it in the least.

Harry also found himself avoiding writing to his friends, quite an unpleasant first for him. Neville wrote two letters, both clearly concerned about Harry's well-being. However, after a few weeks passed without Harry writing back, the correspondence dried up. Neither Luna nor Ginny had responded to Harry's letters, which he supposed was a good thing. Hermione and Ron, somewhat predictably, were relentless in writing to Harry. Despite having carefully avoided explicitly stating the simple fact that they needed to avoid him like the plague he was, it seemed that both had sussed it out. Both were quite clear in their messages that they disagreed with him, and that they intended to remain his friends. Hermione's letters were lengthy, combining ongoing details of her vacation in Spain and Morocco with wordy arguments against abandoning Harry. Ron's responses were eloquent only for their brevity: Harry - Still going to be your friend, mate. Give up, come by the Burrow. I know where you live. - Ron

He'd started out sending brief notes back. Harry was very clear in explaining the dangers to them, and why he couldn't be near either of them. Their entreaties kept coming, and he asked them to stop writing. In desperation, he had simply stopped responded to any of their letters. A week back, Harry decided he couldn't keep reading their letters; Ron's angry insistence in caring about him in spite of the danger Harry put his whole family in, and Hermione's clearly tearful concern were too much to deal with. He'd started sending letters back to them unopened.

By the time the end of August had rolled around Harry's social circle had shrunk from anemic to skeletal. Sturgis Podmore had stopped by with Harry's books and supplies for the upcoming year's classes. Harry had written to Remus and requested that someone pick up his supplies, since he had no method of getting to Diagon Alley. Harry wasn't too surprised to see Podmore delivering the goods. In recent weeks, it seemed to Harry that Remus was avoiding him.

So Harry sat alone, illuminated by the small circle of light from his desk lamp, and read. He was tucked into his small desk, enjoying the fact that it was the middle of the night. After all, it was normal to be alone at that hour. As such, he was surprised to hear a knock at the door of his bedroom. Harry's wand jumped into his hand, and he turned to face the door. "Come in."

Mr. Weasley entered, taking his pointed wizard hat off of his balding red hair, and tucking it into a pocket in his green Donegal tweed robes. "Harry," he said warmly.

"Mr. Weasley!" Harry's surprise was plain on his face, and he jumped up, wand still in his hand. "Is everything alright? Ron? Ginny?"

"Are fine." Mr. Weasley smiled slightly, and looked uncomfortably around the room for a place to sit. As with Remus, Harry gestured his best friend's father into the chair, and tipped his bed back onto its' feet.

Once Harry was settled, Mr. Weasley spoke up, looking eagerly around the room. "I've never seen your room before, Harry. It doesn't quite seem to look like the downstairs, somehow."

"Er."

Mr. Weasley's attention snapped back to Harry, and an embarrassed flush sufficed his face. More than ever, harry could see Ron in his father. "Right then. Not important. So, I understand from Ron that you don't plan on visiting the Burrow again?"

"Er." It seemed to be Harry's only real response tonight. He shook his head softly, and tried again. "Yes, sir. It's just that... with Voldemort after me..."

Like his son, Mr. Weasley winced when Harry used that name. "Whatever it is that V-Voldemort may be getting up to, I do know what my children will be up to. And I rather think you might not have as much control over whom they are friends with as you may think. We Weasleys' aren't merely pillars of the communities. You might have noticed we are also a bit stubborn."

Harry couldn't suppress a snort. This was like claiming Hagrid was 'a bit tall.' "I might have noticed that."

Mr. Weasley fumbled about for words for a moment, before plowing onward. "Erm. I think the point I was trying to make is that it isn't very healthy for you to push your friends away, Harry. I know my two youngest were very hurt by your letters, and I imagine you aren't any happier."

Harry blinked, his eyes over bright. "I am very sorry to hurt their feelings, sir. Ron and Ginny's. Hermione's too, I imagine. But they've been hurt worse by being my friend, than they could be by not."

Arthur Weasley stood up, and patted Harry on his shoulder. He withdrew his slightly tilted wizard hat from a pocket in his robes, and set it jauntily atop his thinning red hair. "You know Harry, you forgot to write a few more of those letters of yours. Bill, Charlie, Molly and I should have heard from you. We consider you a member of the family, and shan't stop ever. So you've rather a few more stubborn Weasleys' to try to push away. Just a bit of a heads up for you." And with that, he smiled and slipped out of the door and into the night.

* * *

The next morning, Harry had packed his trunk and bustled it down to the front room by nine. At long last it was time to return to Hogwarts, and Harry was quite ready. Every time Harry looked at the Dursley's, camped out in the breakfast room, they fought to reshape their snarls into something resembling smiles. After a few tries, he stopped looking over his shoulder at them. He sat on top of his trunk, and waited for a member of the Order of the Phoenix to pick him up. A low rumbling growl echoed down Privet Drive, and Harry dropped his head into his hand. It wasn't an Order member coming for him today.

Harry stood, and opened the door to see a low grey auto pulling up the curb, all four doors, bonnet, and boot decked in heavy chrome. It slid to a halt on wide whitewalls, and the engine rumble disintegrated. The driver's door swung open, and Ms. Aedernmas hopped out. Still wearing her vividly red jacket, she was now wearing a heather jumper and corduroy skirt. With her long red hair pulled back into a tail, she seemed somehow years younger than when last he'd seen her. Harry's smile was forced, but he managed to wave to her as he started dragging his trunk out to the car.

Morgan popped the boot, and helped him heave his Hogwart's trunk inside. She eyed Hedwig's cage with curiosity as Harry tucked her into the backseat. She clicked the trunk closed, and eyed Number Four Privet Drive speculatively. "Aren't they coming out to say goodbye."

Harry shot his case worker a dark look and snorted. Then he walked around the long auto and slid into the passenger's seat. Morgan's red eyebrows climbed her forehead. "Right then."

She tucked herself back behind the wheel, and coaxed the auto to rumbling life. Casting a gaze at Harry across what seemed like a hectare of leather, Morgan spoke first. "I don't think those friends of your fixed the paint on my Phantom. You know, where those thing-a-ma-jigs hit it."

Harry looked out past the burl wood dash, at the long, sloping hood. There was no evidence Sturgis Podmore had been dangling senseless off the ornament, nor were any of the score marks left. He blinked his green eyes in confusion. "It looks like they did, ma'am."

"I'm not so sure. Seems a bit spotty." Morgan gestured casually with her left hand as she swung the Rolls-Royce onto the M3 and let the pedal graze the plush carpeting.

Harry looked at the hood, and saw the road notices reflected legibly in the smoky metallic grey paint. "You're car is awfully shiny, Ms. Aedernmas. I think it's probably okay."

"Harrumph. And if they'd torn up that broomstick you were telling me about, you wouldn't be a scotch bit picky, now?"

"They did, actually." Harry stopped looking at Surrey rolling past him, and grinned unevenly. "Nevermind. I think they might have bollixed up the paint, ma'am."

"Good." She grinned at him, blue eyes tight. "I thought so."

The south end of London rolled by quickly, save for the traffic abatement stops. Harry debated the pros and cons of muggle travel. On the one hand, Floo powder would have gotten him to the Hogwarts Express long before the auto even reached the expressway. On the other hand, Floo powder would have thrown him out of a fireplace, covered in soot and woozy. Harry nestled into the leather upholstery and grinned. Maybe being picked up by his muggle case worker wasn't completely without merit.

"I understand that Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain, according to what I'm reading from your Ministry of Magic." Morgan's comment came out of the blue as they crossed a narrow bridge and turned north.

"Yeah." Harry pulled his attention back to Ms. Aedernmas.

Morgan nodded, shooting him a sidelong look with her brilliant blue eyes narrowed. "I've never had one of my charges who was hunted by an evil, nearly immortal magician and his crew of henchmen before. It's nice to know at least nine months of the year, he can't reach you."

"Er." Harry's mouth stuck open. He shut it, and looked around the car a little desperately. He pointed to the polished trim around the ventilation grilles. "Say, is this real wood?"

"Harry..." Morgan's voice dropped sharply. "What aren't you telling me right now."

"Oh." Harry sunk into his seat a bit. "Loads, I imagine."

"And..." Morgan let that trail off. When he still had not responded, she snapped. "Harry! Is it possible you might not be safe at school?"

"Maybe."

Her eyes were as sharp as always, and she cocked an eyebrow speculatively. "Does that mean 'maybe, you don't know' or 'maybe, you know and don't want to tell me?'"

Harry sighed. "Yeah, he can reach me there. About, um, three times so far. And once he lured me out of Hogwarts."

The Rolls swerved noticeably in the lane, and a tiny Cooper shied nervously away from a quarter panel that dwarfed it. "And that's the safest place in Britain? Why aren't you in hiding somewhere?"

"I sort of am." Harry shrugged fatalistically. "The Dursley's are pretty much as hidden as possible. And Hogwarts is almost as untouchable."

"Maybe we should think about you staying in hiding until someone arrests this Voldemort character." Morgan frowned, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

Harry laughed hollowly. "I need to learn magic. That means going to Hogwarts. Sorry, it's not that easy."

Morgan held out her left hand to Harry, mollifying. "Not permanently Harry. Just until someone locks this guy up. In my world, it would be like protective custody, or witness relocation. On the plus side, it would mean no Dursley's."

"Er. Er... Okay, so the thing is that the reason why Voldemort is trying to kill me is that there's a prophecy, and it says that one of us has to kill the other one, so if anyone's going to stop him, it'll have to be me, so hiding out won't really help, and I really need to know more magic, because I've tried dueling him before, and there's no way I can stop him right now, so no, I really can't stay anywhere else, and I have to go to Hogwarts, even though, yes, most likely I'll be attacked by Voldemort before July if he sticks to his usual schedule, see?" Harry rushed through it all in one breath.

The Rolls glided down the M3, the correct turn off for the station vanishing behind them as they careened onwards. The only sounds in the car were the rumble of the engine, the hiss of the pavement, and the clicking of the turn signal left on. A few kilometers passed in silence before Morgan spoke up again.

"You just keep on doing what you're doing then."

"What?" Harry's bright green eyes snapped up to look at Morgan in shock.

She slewed the Rolls into a slow turn towards an offramp, casting about for the roadway back towards the rail yards. "I take it you were expecting something else, right?"

He nodded. "Um, yeah. Mostly adults have lots of 'advice' about what I should be doing."

"Bull pucky." Morgan nodded. "I'm out of my depth with all this magic and fortune-telling going on. Normally, I'd have a raft of options to use, to get you out of harms way. Here I am, I can't get you away from a family that mistreats you. I have to let you toddle off to a school where you're likely to be attacked at. Apparently, you even have to dispose of this wizard by yourself. Everything I should be doing to help you, I can't.

"Well, you've survived this far as close to on your own as I've ever seen. And you're a good kid, too. You stepped in to help me, first time we met. You're polite and helpful, even when you're hurting and don't want to talk to anyone. I don't really understand how you can be so well adjusted; maybe it's part of being a wizard. In any event, I rarely see people who do get some intervention coming out as well off as you seem to be.

"So you just go on doing whatever you've been doing. It's working."

"Thanks." Harry nodded, and smiled. "I... It's oddly nice to hear that."

"Just one word of advice, Harry." Morgan pulled the car over in front of the train station and killed the engine before turning in her seat. She leaned forward intently. "This Voldemort, he's a murderer and a torturer, eh? Stay safe, and none of this wishy-washy sweet Fanny Adams. You don't try to send him to the Isle of Wight, or to hospital. He comes after you, this Voldemort, you get help. And then you send him to the morgue."

Harry nodded, wide eyed. Morgan continued. "I've had one of my boys killed by a monster, Harry. Don't make me ride home with you like that."

"I won't."

They were quiet as they pulled Harry's belongings from the boot and scuttled off towards Platform Nine. They crossed through the grand foyer, and out onto the brick expanse of the platforms, Harry found himself in the odd position of having a hand through the crowd. At long last, he pulled his cart up to the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. Morgan looked at the signs above each train, trying to spot which was headed for Hogwarts. Harry smiled again.

"Thanks for the ride. I'll see you in about a year then, ma'am." And with that, Harry turned and ran through the wall separating Platforms Nine and ten.

Morgan's jaw dropped, and she walked forward tentatively. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers against the brick, finding it rough and cold. She pulled her hand back, and slapped her open palm against the brickwork. It remained as solid as ever. She spun around and strode off. "Harrumph. Wouldn't have minded seeing something a bit flashier..."

* * *

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