Harry Potter and the Staff of Merlin

"So, my little friend, what do you have to say for yourself now?"

"You’ll never get me to talk, why don’t you just get it over with!"

"What, do you think that muggle loving fool Dumbledore will come and save you?"

"Dumbledore is twice the wizard you’ll ever be, and I won’t talk!"

"Oh, but you will talk. Maybe you just need a little more persuasion."

"No, please, AAAAAhhhhhhhhh!"

Harry Potter woke up sweating and tangled in his blankets with his scar throbbing. Putting on his glasses, he glanced at the little alarm clock on his desk. It read 3:00 a.m. It happened again, he thought. Ever since returning to the Dursley’s house two weeks ago, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He had been having nightmares every night, waking up in a cold sweat and then laying in his bed until the sun came up and he was called down to cook breakfast. However, this was the first time that he had seen from Voldemort and had his scar hurting. The pain had all but ceased, now down to an annoying pounding. He thought about what he had just seen. It sounded like Voldemort was using a curse on someone, probably Crucio. He hadn’t made out whom Voldemort was using it on, but it sounded like someone like someone who was working for Dumbledore. Dumbledore. He had to inform Dumbledore of what he had just happened.

Getting up, he walked over to the loose floorboard and got a quill and some parchment out.

"Dear Professor,

I just had a dream and woke up with my scar hurting. In it Voldemort was using Crucio on somebody who wouldn’t tell him something. I woke up right before he used Crucio again.

Harry Potter

Finishing up, he got up and tied it to Hedwig’s leg.

"This has to go to Professor Dumbledore quickly, okay Hedwig?" After giving Harry and affectionate nip on his hand, Hedwig took off out the window. Oh yeah, thought Harry, another night alone. Looking at the clock, it read 3:30. He wished that he was back at Hogwarts right now, where all he had to do was cross the dorm room for someone to talk to. Or, if he didn't feel comfortable with Ron, he could always sneak into the girls dorms and grab Hermione. He had received a lot of owls from them both this year, much more than any other summer; he knew that this was only because they were concerned about him, and he disliked the sympathetic tone of the letters, but it make him feel a little better to talk to his friends.

Only three more hours. Then he had to put up with the Dursley’s. It wasn’t quite as bad this summer, because Dudley was still suffering from his severe case of obesity. His school nurse had forced Petunia and Vernon to send Dudley to a "special camp for special boys", or in normal people language a fat camp.

However, that didn’t mean that the Dursley’s were going to be any nicer to him. In fact, they were probably worse than ever. They had him up at six in the morning to cook breakfast for them, and if they didn’t like it or they liked it too much than they wouldn’t give him any. He then had to do a list of chores before he received any lunch, which in itself resembled the form of half a sandwich and a glass of water. He then had another list of chores to be done before supper, and more than once he had missed supper working late. The only time they left him to himself was at night. The long nights. He rarely got more than a few hours of sleep, and when he did he felt nauseous upon waking.

The reason he didn’t sleep was because of the dreams he kept having. Horrible nightmares. He knew that he deserved them, because he had killed Cedric… no, don’t think like that Potter.You know you couldn’t have stopped Voldemort and Pettigrew from killing Cedric. But still. If I had just taken the cup. That’s what Cedric had wanted. Its not like I didn’t want to. God knows I wanted that cup. Stupid conscience. If I didn’t have a conscience I could probably be asleep right now. And if I had taken that cup alone then Cedric could probably be alive right now.

He had to get off that topic. He had found that it hurt worst when he was thinking of Cedric. He looked at the clock again. 4:08. He decided to do some homework, and took out his books from under the floor. Even when he attempted to force himself to sleep by writing essays for history of magic, all that resulted was a piece of work that would make Hermione jealous and made him even more tired. By the time he finished, it was a little after six. Just then, there was the annoying "Harry!" he heard every morning from his aunt. He went down, and after slightly burning the scrambled eggs, received no breakfast.

"Boy, I want all this done by lunch time, do I make myself clear," thundered Vernon, handing Harry a list. "And another thing, you woke me up last night with your incessant pen scratching. Let me make it clear that if that ever happens again you will be out on the streets before you could say ‘blood magic’."

"Oh, Uncle Vernon, you said the ‘m’ word."

"Don’t patronize me boy, or you’ll regret it." Vernon was getting red now, but he had gotten Harry started. With his recent lack of sleep, Harry was starting to let things slip lately, and this happened again. "Yeah, like anything you could do could make me regret it," Harry mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say boy!" Vernon was yelling now.

"Nothing you could understand!" Harry snapped. It was probably because he was so tired, but suddenly he just couldn’t take any more of Vernon’s crap.

"Is that any way to talk to me? Petunia and I take you off the streets and this is the thanks that you keep on giving us!"

"Your Damn right! I probably would have been better off on the streets anyway, though!"

"It's not our fault that your mother was a stupid bitch and got herself killed with that magic business!"

"What did you just say," Harry said very quietly.

"And don't give me any of that Godfather bullshit, because I don't see him here to save you and I haven't seen him the past 3 years!"

"What did you just say," repeated Harry, again very quietly, almost so Vernon couldn’t hear it.

"I SAID YOUR MOTHER WAS A STUPID BITCH!"

Harry couldn’t take it anymore, and tried to run out.

"Where do you think your going, boy!" Vernon grabbed Harry as he tried to run out.

Harry turned slowly. "To get my wand, and turn your fat ass into a mongoose!"

Vernon didn’t do anything for a minute but stare at Harry and hold onto his arm. Then, all of a sudden, he reared back and backhanded Harry as hard as he could. He then pulled him up, and backhanded him again. He then threw Harry into the wall as hard as he could, and Harry stayed on the ground.

"Listen here, you bloody stupid kid. I am going to work. Petunia is going shopping. When we get back, you will be gone. You will not be back this summer. You will not be back next summer. You will not be back ever. Do I make myself clear!" He waited a few seconds, and Harry, lying on the ground, said nothing. Vernon threw his coffee on Harry, then asked again, "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

With that, Petunia and Vernon left the house, got in their cars, and left, leaving Harry lying on the floor. He burst out crying. He had contained himself when they were around, but now he couldn’t take it. Cedric’s death, not sleeping for weeks, and now this. It wasn't like this was the first time that Vernon had hit him, since he had quite frequently before Harry had left for Hogwarts, but this was the first time that Harry had actually argued back against Vernon. Even during the summers when he was home from Hogwarts Vernon had hit him, although never hard like this. Oh well, he rationalized, it was really my fault. I did provoke him. Not that it matters if I did, because I just would have done something else.

Harry knew that he had to leave. He had no place to go, no family, he wasn’t supposed to go to the Weasley’s, and Sirius was on the run. He had to go somewhere. He thought of writing to Dumbledore, but then remembered that he had just sent a letter with Hedwig. He knew that he couldn’t just stay, because the Dursley’s would probably hit him again. That’s it. He would go to Diagon Alley and wait there for Hedwig so he could ask Dumbledore if he could go to the Burrow.

Dragging himself up, he went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He had two red welts on his face where his uncle had hit him, his face was all tear streaked, and his hair was a mess (although that was nothing new). He took a quick shower, combed his hair, and got dressed in his best muggle clothes. He still had the welts on his face, but what was he going to do about that. With that, he gathered up his trunk, with all his books, homework, Firebolt, and his invisibility cloak in it, grabbed Hedwig’s cage, and left.

Harry walked out of the house and caught a whiff of fresh air. It felt strange and refreshing to him, as he hadn’t been out of the house since he had been there, except to weed the garden. It woke him up from the stupor that he had been in, and he finally thought of the reality of the situation. He was a fourteen-year-old wizard, on summer vacation, not allowed to do magic, with a dark lord who wanted him dead. It wasn’t an extremely pleasant situation to be in, especially since he really didn’t have anywhere to go. Finally, he decided to walk to the bus station and get a ticket to London with the money he had borrowed from Vernon’s desk.

Upon arriving at the station, he got an evil look from the man selling tickets, but was allowed to purchase a seat without any questions. His bus arrived at nine, but it was only eight-thirty so he had a little while to sit and think. He thought about all that had happened since this morning. Harry didn’t care what happened to the Dursley’s. No matter how much they hated him and his mother, nobody should call her that. He wished that Sirius were with him, because if he had heard Vernon say that, then he would have flipped. And when Sirius flips, you don’t want to be anywhere near him.

The bus ride went smooth all the way to London, though people did give him funny looks when he loaded his trunk and owl cage into the baggage compartment. However, once he was safely off the bus, he realized that although he was in London, he had no clue as to where he was or where Diagon Alley was. He had never been in muggle London before, save the infamous ride on the underground with Hagrid before his first year. He could get a cab, but he didn’t have any more muggle money after buying a quick breakfast at the bus station.

After asking many people if they knew where the Leaky Cauldron was, he finally just gave up and started out of the station. After walking for about an hour, he was completely lost, and it looked like he didn’t want to be in this part of town. Wanting to sit down and think a bit, he wandered into a side alley and sat down. He was exhausted from walking this far on so little sleep. He started to think about how he was going to get to Diagon Alley, but finally let his dreariness overtake him and slowly felt his eyelids fall down over his eyes.

"Well, now, what do wese gots here?"

"It looks like a wee kiddie, come to stay in our alley."

"Well, we can’ts be havin’ that now, can we."

"We don’t like little kiddie’s staying in our alley."

"Let’s see what it’s got in its suitcase."

"You idiot, that’s a trunk."

"Hey, don’t you be callin’ me no idiot!"

When Harry finally opened his eyes, he saw two very large men wrestling at his feet. Both were very dirty, with long hair and filthy clothes, resembling Sirius except for their eyes. Finally, the larger of the two pinned the other one down and threw his hat down the alley. As soon as he was let up, he ran and got his hat and both stared at Harry.

"Who are ya, and what are ya doin’ here?" asked the bigger of the two.

"Ya, what right ‘ave you got to come and sleep in our alley," asked the one with the hat.

"This is our alley, and we own it, so you better ‘ave got a good reason for being here," said the bigger one.

"Oh, I’m sorry, I just sat down to have a rest and I think that I’ll be going now, thank you," replied Harry. He started to back towards his trunk, getting ready to grab it and run if necessary.

"Aw, I’m sorry if my stupid friend here scared you. Don’t worry, we won’t hurt ya. All we want to do is have a look around that trunk of yours, that’s all."

They started advancing on Harry, who, realizing that they had just cut off his escape, bent down to pick up a piece of wood that was lying on the ground. However, when he did this, the larger of the two leapt at him and tackled him. Pinning him to the ground, he lay on top of Harry while his partner opened Harry’s trunk.

"Whoa, this is some weird stuff. Do you know how much this nice silvery cloak could get us from Stone? A lot! Man, look at this stuff!" As the guy got up slightly to look in Harry’s trunk, Harry started yelling for help. The guy shoved his hand over Harry’s mouth quickly, but Harry bit his hand. "Dammit! You little bastard, you’re gonna pay for that one!" He started to pull Harry upright, but just then someone shouted, "FREEZE!"

The men immediately stopped moving, and the large one dropped Harry as he put his hands behind his head.

"All right, listen to me closely, because I’m only going to do this once. You two leave, now, and I don’t want to see you here again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir, we going right this second." With that, Harry’s two assailants ran off down the streets of London. Very slowly, Harry got up and turned to face the new arrival, who appeared in the form of an old man.

"Harry Potter?" staggered the man Harry was facing.

"Um, yes, but if you don’t mind me asking, who are you?"

"Oh, where are my manners. I’m Mundungus Fletcher."

"I heard Professor Dumbledore talk about you," Harry began slowly, "You were a part of his group that fought Voldemort."

"Yes, that would be me. But what in the world are you doing out here?"

"I was looking for Diagon Alley, and I kinda got lost."

"If by ‘kinda got lost’, you mean you wandered to the opposite side of London, then you are correct. Come. I will escort you to Diagon Alley. It’s not good for anyone your age to be out alone wandering the streets of London and with the Dark Lord back and all. Get your stuff; I’ll buy you supper at the Leaky Cauldron. It’s almost seven now, and I don’t suspect you’ve eaten?"

"No, I kind of lost track of time." Harry gathered all the stuff into his trunk, and they started off towards the other side of London.

By the time they reached the Leaky Cauldron, it was dark and quite cold for a summer night. They went inside and sat at a table towards the back. Soon the barkeep Tom came and got their orders, and they sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally Harry broke the silence.

"How did you find me back there?"

"Well, I was coming from a meeting in that area, and I happened to be walking past the alley when that man was holding up a invisibility cloak. Plus I’d know that cloak from anywhere, it was James’."

"How did you know that it was my fathers’?" Harry was astounded. In a few hours, he had been rescued by and was now eating with an elderly man who said he knew his father.

"You didn’t know? I taught James and also Lily when he was at Hogwarts, then helped recruit him after he graduated for the fight against Voldemort."

"You taught my father?"

"That’s right."

Just then, the door opened and in walked two people, one of whom Harry knew very well.

"Professor Lupin! Over here!" He yelled. Remus and the older lady he was with came over to their table and joined them.

"Harry, how are you doing. And what are you doing here with that big old bag of-"

"You really should mind your elders and betters, Remus. But then you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Just look at Sirius, for example." Replied Fletcher.

"Oh, Harry, this is Arabella Figg, she used to teach at Hogwarts and is working with us against Voldemort."

"You look so much like James, Harry, but you still have Lily’s lovely eyes." Mrs. Figg told Harry.

"Nice to meet you. Did you teach my parents too?"

"Why yes I did. Wonderful people. Its too bad…" she trailed off. The group was silent for a minute. Then Remus spoke up:
"Harry, I have to talk to you in private for a minute." Professor Lupin and Harry went off to some stools at the counter as Mrs. Figg and Mundungus continued to talk.

"Harry, I talked to Professor Dumbledore about you just last week, and he said that you should not be near any magical people or communities. In fact, he specifically said that you were not supposed to leave the Dursley’s at all. Now, you better have a pretty good reason for doing so or he is going to be ripped. I better get you back there before he finds out." Suddenly, an explosion came from the Make Your Own Potion stand in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron. The room was suddenly brightly illuminated, and Professor Lupin noticed for the first time the welts on Harry’s face. "Harry, how did you get those welts on you face?"

"What! Oh, nothing, I just, um, was being stupid and walked into a door."

"Harry, don’t lie to me. Now, how did you get those welts?" He finished very slowly.

"I’m not really sure."

"Harry, did the Dursley’s give you those?"

"I don’t know."

"Harry, it’s very important that you tell me how you got those."

"I can’t. I’ll tell you later."

"Fine. You can come home with me tonight, and then we’ll owl Dumbledore tomorrow. Does that sound okay to you?"

"Of course. Where do you live, anyway?"

"It’s a small cottage in South Wales, in a very small and isolated magical village. We’ll get there by Floo Powder. Don’t get your hopes up, because you’ll probably only going to be staying one or two nights. But just so you know, if you ever need a place to stay, now or twenty years from now, my door is always open."

"Thanks, Professor." Harry said, giving Remus a big smile.

They walked back over to the table and, after eating and talking with Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher, Remus stood up.

"Well, I think its about time for me and Harry to head out."

"So early?" asked Arabella.

"It’s almost eleven." Replied Remus.

"Oh my, look at the time, I should go too."

"Okay, well me and Harry will see you guys later, all right."

"Bye."

"See you soon."

With that, Harry grabbed some Floo Powder and threw it into the fire, saying "Caer Aeyis" as he had been instructed. Apparently, the village Remus lived in was first populated by ancient Celt wizards, naming it Caer Aeyis. Remus said that it had been rumored that this was the birthplace of Merlin himself, far from the eyes of the retreating Romans. He arrived to find himself in a poorly lit room with drab furniture and a cold hardwood floor. He just got out of the way in time to avoid being landed upon by Remus, and helped him out of the fire, then getting his trunk and placing it in the middle of the room.

"Well, this is it, I’m afraid. I know it isn’t much, but…

"Professor Lupin, trust me on this one. It is a hundred times better than the Dursley’s."

"Speaking of the Dursley’s, you didn’t tell me how you got those things on your face."

Harry yawned. "Oh, I’m so tired, I should go to bed. I’ll tell you in the morning, okay Professor?"

"Okay, but no getting out of it this time. You tell me how you got them in the morning. And call me Remus, please. I’ll go get your room ready." Whoa, thought Harry. That had been too close. It’s lucky I’m such a damn good actor. But what will I tell him in the morning…

"There you go Harry, you trunk is in your room. The bathroom is down the hall to the right if you need to use it. I’m going to bed now also, so I’ll see you in the morning. Good Night."

"Good Night Remus." Called Harry.

Harry was running through a giant maze. Hot on his tail was a gigantic blast-ended skrewt. He could see ahead of him Krum putting Cedric under Crucio. When he reached Cedric, a wall appeared in front of him and Krum disappeared. They all disappeared. The maze turned into a quidditch field, and he and Cedric were on broomsticks. He could hear Lee Johnson announcing:

And it all comes down to this, folks. Potter and Diggory, looking for the snitch while the entire school and practically the entire world look on. OH MY, it looks like Diggory sees the snitch. He’s going after it, and it looks like it’s going to be his, but wait. Potter is going into a Wronski Feint! It’s working, Diggory is following. They’re getting closer to the ground now, picking up speed. And Potter pulls up, saving himself like the coward that he is. OH MY GOD! IT APPEARS THAT DIGGORY HAS GONE HEAD FIRST INTO THE GROUND. They’re giving the signal that he is dead folks. HARRY POTTER KILLED CEDRIC DIGGORY! HARRY POTTER HAS KILLED CEDRIC DIGGORY!

Harry woke up with the blankets on the floor and the sheets covered in sweat. Even at a place where he felt completely safe, he still couldn’t get any sleep. The clock on the windowsill said 2:34 in the morning. That’s not good, he thought. There was no way to get back to sleep after on of his dreams, he had tried repeatedly. Also, Remus probably wouldn’t expect him up until eight or nine in the morning, being a normal teenager. He turned on his light and did the thing that took his mind off Cedric the best at night, homework. God, he hated homework. History of Magic was the worst. Look at this, he was surprised it didn’t put him to sleep, but nothing could do that. How has the Code of Merlin effected modern Magical Law? Who in their right mind could possibly care about that stuff? Not even Hermione cared about the history of magic. He missed Hermione more than he let himself realize before. He missed all his friends. Right now he would take anyone short of Draco Malfoy, just because he knew they would reassure him, tell him that what happened wasn’t his fault. But no one besides himself, Dumbledore, and Sirius knew what had really happened.

He finished working on his homework for the night at 6:00, and put his stuff back into his trunk. He then climbed back into bed, scary for him because he remembered what had happened the night before. But Remus would be up soon, and Harry had to pretend he was sleeping for at least two hours.

After two of the most boring hours of his life, he got up and pulled some robes on. It had just turned eight, so he figured that it would be safe for him to be up without suspect from Remus. He went down the hall of the one floor cottage into the kitchen, where Remus was making a breakfast of pancakes and bacon from a magical cookbook.

"God damn pancakes! Won’t cook right for me!" He just then turned around, and noticed Harry standing in the doorway. "Oh, sorry about that Harry. Its just that, you know, cooking isn’t exactly the right thing for me to do first thing in the morning, and seeing as I don’t usually have company…

"It’s okay, I’ll just have some toast."

"Thank god! Well, if for some strange reason you want some black pancakes, they’re in the trash."

"Um, I think I’m gonna pass on that."

"Wise choice. We have to talk to Dumbledore today, Harry, to figure out what to do with you. But first, we have to talk. Now, I know I’m not your father, and I’m not even Sirius, but your going to have to trust me. You know that I care for you like my own son and don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I heard you last night; you were up from 2:00 until you came out at eight. You have dark circles under your eyes, and I can tell from being around you that you’re not sleeping. Also, you have those things on your face. Can you tell me where you got them?"

"All right, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anybody."

"I promise."

"Okay, I got these because…" Harry stopped for a minute to compose himself, and then said, "Vernon Dursley hit me. I also have a big bruise on my chest because he threw me into the wall."

"Harry, I know that this is hard for you, but you have to tell me why."

"Because I told him I was going to turn his fat ass into a mongoose."

"You know you shouldn’t have done that. But it doesn’t make a difference, he still shouldn’t have hurt you."

"I only said that because he called my mom a…"

"What did he call Lily?" Remus said very slowly.

"A stupid bitch!"

"Well now, that’s interesting. Would you excuse me." Remus said this very calm, but Harry could tell he was about to explode. Remus walked out of the kitchen, down the hall and shut the door. Harry could hear him yelling at the top of his voice, but could only make out snatches of what he was saying. "THAT SONOFABITCH!" "I’M GONNA GET HIM FOR THAT ONE!" "HOW DARE HE TALK THAT WAY ABOUT LILY!"

After a few minutes, Remus regained his composure and rejoined Harry at the table.

"Well, this changes things a tad bit. I will need to inform Dumbledore of what had happened and what was said. You can stay here, there is an old muggle TV in the living room. I’ll be back before lunch, okay?"

"Don’t worry, I’ll be fine here, all right."

"Bye then. Oh, and by the way Harry, don’t tell Sirius what Vernon said about Lily, because he’s not as calm as I am."

"Okay, I won’t."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Harry sat at the table for a while after that, thinking about what Remus had said. He knew that Harry hadn’t been sleeping, and that the Dursley’s had hurt him. He was going to tell Dumbledore, but what was Dumbledore going to do about it. He surely wasn’t going to have to go back to the Dursley’s, but he also probably couldn’t go to the Weasley’s. What had Dumbledore said? Was it that he wasn’t safe in the wizarding world? Did that mean that he couldn’t stay at any wizard household? He hoped not, seeing as though he had no friends in the muggle world. Would they send him to a Muggle family to live with during the summer, to adopt him? He hoped not. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it, so he went out to watch TV in the miniature living room.

Just after eleven, Remus apparated into the house with someone else. When they stood up, Harry could see that it was Professor Dumbledore. Dumbledore then turned to speak to Harry.

"Ah Harry, I trust that you are having a good time with Remus."

"Very good, sir. You don’t think I could stay here?"

"Unfortunately, no. You are at this moment being tracked by followers of Voldemort, and we must get you into the muggle world as soon as possible. Harry, Remus told me what happened. You cannot live getting only a few hours of sleep a night, and with the guilt of what the Dursley’s did to you. You said something that you should not of said, but that is no reason to hit a child. When you are in your new home you will be getting sleeping potions periodically."

"Where is my new home, sir?"