Chapter 2: Something Is Wrong With Harry (Part 1)
Lea and Harry secretly hung out with each other as often
as they can for the rest of the school year. Harry has been
sneaking away from Dudley's entourage every time. He has
a high success rate, but that doesn't protect him from Dudley
at home. Harry is always injured in some way, but he always
waves away Lea's worries. He says, "It will all be over soon,
I'm fine." Not like that makes Lea worry any less, especially
since she is pretty sure Harry is hiding the worst injuries from
her.
Besides planning their great escape, Lea starts teaching
Harry how to feel his magical core. However, Harry has
a hard time meditating and always ends up bouncing his
knees instead of concentrating. It seemed normal at first, not
everyone is good at meditating, but then his attention span
gets smaller and smaller as the days past. He sometimes gets
confused when Lea uses bigger words, words that he should
know. Something is wrong with Harry. Lea tries to subtly ask
and tell Harry what is happening to him in ways that would be
obvious if he was mentally an adult. When that doesn't work
she bluntly states, "Your attention span is shrinking over time.
You are becoming more childish. Are you alright? How are
you feeling?"
Harry makes a face like he is thinking about the hardest
thing in the world, "I think I'm regressing back to an actual
child for some reason. It is taking all my concentration to even
have this conversation. I don't know why this is happening."
Then, Harry's thinking face is gone and says, "Do you want to
play rock, paper, scissors with me."
Lea outwardly smiles and plays with Harry while internally
is adjusting their plans. She really hopes the goblins will know
how to fix this.
-----
It is the second to last day before school ends. Lea tries her
best to make sure Harry remembers his part in the plan. "All
you have to do is pack everything into your backpack before
bringing it to school tomorrow. Now repeat back to me what I
said."
"Pack stuff into backpack." Harry skittishly and childishly
says.
"Pack everything that is yours okay?"
"Ok, I don't have much so it's easy."
As Lea plays with Harry, she repeatedly makes sure he
knows what to do. By the time they have to go back to school,
Lea is satisfied and knows Harry will remember what to
do. Though, Lea is still nervous for tomorrow. They were
supposed to be working together on this, but now Lea has to
take care of childlike Harry while also getting to the wizarding
world. However, Lea is confident it will all work out. At least
she can use parts of their original plan and is not just winging
it.
-----
Harry never shows up at school. Lea is worried for him.
Dudley, and probably Dudley's parents, have been getting
more and more violent as Harry continues to evade Dudley at
school. She doesn't know how he survives going back home
everyday. Lea is worried what kind of state he must be in if he
couldn't make it to school. The best case scenario is if Harry
was just locked in his cupboard again, not that Harry knows
that Lea knows some details about his home life. Harry never
wanted to talk about it, even when prompted.
Lea decides it is up to her to save Harry. Her bag is already
packed and Harry's should be too, hopefully. Lea sneaky
follows Dudley home and luckily he doesn't notice. When
they get to the Dursley's house, Lea waits a bit after Dudley
enters his home before getting closer. Lea turns on her magic
sight and sees the color of Harry's magic through the wall,
where his cupboard should be. She has not experimented if her
magic sight went through walls, but she is glad it worked. She
wanted to make sure Harry was actually there. Lea decides to
wait for nightfall before rescuing Harry.
Lea takes a toy lock she got from school out of her backpack
and starts to attempt use magic to unlock it. She had planned
to learn the unlocking charm once they were settled in the
wizard world. But, like every one of her plans so far, that is
out the window. She needs to learn it before it is time to get
Harry. Ignoring that she has not successfully casted any magic
spells yet.
As Lea practices, the sun slowly goes down and it turns to
night. Lea could tell she was close to getting the unlocking
spell to work, but it needed a little more of something. Lea
thinks about how much she wants to save Harry and how
much she wants the lock to open, and the lock finally opens.
Lea makes a big smile. That was the first time she was able
to use actual wizarding magic. Lea physically locks and
magically unlocks the lock a few more times before deciding
she was ready.
It was late enough that everyone should be asleep. Lea goes
to the front door of number 4 Privet Drive, puts her hand on
the doorknob and unlocks the door. Lea tip toes to Harry's
cupboard and whispers "Please whisper. It's me, Lea." as she
unlocks the cupboard door.
"Lea? What are you doing here?" Harry weakly questions.
Lea opens the door and gets a look at Harry. It is dark so she
cannot see the true damage he is in, but she can see enough to
know he is not doing well. "I came to get you out of here of
course. Now get everything you need and lets get out of here."
Harry grabs his backpack and winces as he attempts to put it
on. Lea carefully takes the backpack from Harry and carries it
herself. Now she has two backpacks on, one on each shoulder.
Lea helps Harry out of the closet and closes it once he is out.
She helps Harry walk out if the house, also closing the house
door. They walk towards the main road, far enough that no
one in the neighborhood would see them.
The original plan involved taking a taxi with the money
Lea and Harry saved or stole. Now that money has to be saved
and hope it's enough for the goblins. Harry had told Lea how
to get to Leaky Cauldron during his few moments of clarity in
case he forgot with his regression. There was more to the plan
of course, but it doesn't matter now. Besides, they are never
going to find a taxi at this time of night.
Lea raises her dominate hand and powers her magic into it,
hoping this will work even if she doesn't have a wand. She
even calls out lumos to get a better chance of it working even
though she has not cast the spell before.
Nothing happens. Lea sighs and starts to bring Harry to find
a spot to hide until daytime.
Suddenly, there is a whoosh sound and a few honks. It's the
night bus, a magical bus for wizards. Lea makes a huge smile
and leads the fascinated Harry into the Knight Bus.
A lady stands at the door taking out a paper and reads,
"Welcome to the night bus, emergency transport for a stranded
witch or wizard. My name is Nancy and I will be your
conductor this evening." She puts away her flashcard. "Come
on in. I will take your backpacks."
Lea and Harry enter the Knight Bus and take a seat at one
of the beds. Lea tells Harry to lie down, then lies down next
to him and wraps her arm around him, making sure she has a
good hold on him. As suddenly at the bus appeared, the bus
drove off, almost causing Harry and Lea to fall off. Conductor
Nancy causally walks over and asks, "Where are you two little
children off to today?"
"Leaky Cauldron please," which comes out a little warbled
since Lea is trying to keep Harry and herself from falling.
Conductor Nancy goes to make sure the driver heard where
to go. Lea asks Harry, "How are you feeling?"
"Great!" he says, "This is so fun! I've never gotten to go on a
ride before."
Lea smiles. She looks out the window and watches as the
bus magically goes around and through traffic. Lea outwardly
is calm because she has to take care of Harry and get him to
Gringotts. Inwardly, Lea can't help feeling excited. This is the
start of entering the magical world. She will be seeing a lot
more magic from here on.
-----
Getting to the Leaky Cauldron took no time at all, even with
the occasional stop. As Lea gets their bags, Conductor Nancy says,
"Here we are, Leaky Cauldron. That would be eleven sickles
please."
Lea keeps a straight face, but internally she is worried she
wont be allowed to pay. "How much is that in muggle money?"
"£3.24" Conductor ... kindly replies.
Lea internally sighs in relief, she was worried they would try
to scam her. Harry had taught her the conversion rate between
wizard and muggle money, but she can't do the mental math
between them that well. Luckily she knows around what price
11 sickles is so she shouldn't get scammed in that way. Lea
pays and gets off the bus while saying her goodbyes. Harry
looks at Lea and then back at the bus and decides to imitate
her, waving his hand in a childish way. The Knight Bus left as
quickly the it appeared.
Lea takes off her hoodie and puts it on Harry. She just
realized she forgot to do this earlier. Lea makes sure the hood
is up and covering Harry's face, especially his scar. Since
Harry is malnourished, the hoodie is too big on him. Luckily
that works in favor of concealing Harry.
"Stay quiet, don't get go of my hand, and try to stay as close
as possible without running into me or someone else." Lea
instructs Harry. "Got that?" Harry nods. Lea grabs his hand
and leads him into the Leaky Cauldron. The place is packed.
Everyone is at least a little drunk with the majority being
plastered. Lea and Harry used their height to their advantage
and weaved around everyone until they got to the back door.
Lea exhaled, she didn't even realize she was holding her
breath. Lea goes to the brick wall to tap on the brick that will
open to Diagon alley. However, even with all their planning,
Lea and Harry forgot to account for them being too short.
They are not even as tall as the rubbish bin. Lea was originally
going to tap the brick while pouring magic into her hand,
assuming one needed magic to open the door, but Lea did
not want to ask Harry to help her up. He doesn't have a lot
of muscle and is very injured. Lea instructs Harry to get on
her shoulders, thinking might as well try tapping it normally.
Maybe it can detect when a wizard is taping it, or it doesn't
expect a muggle to get this far.
Harry gets on Lea's shoulders after convincing him that he
wouldn't hurt her. Lea tells Harry to start at the rubbish bin,
count up three bricks, then left two bricks. Once Harry has
found the correct brick, she tells him to tap it three times. The
brick wall opens, revealing Diagon Alley.
Lea gaped at how magical everything is, the movies did
not show Diagon Alley at night before. The path is lit up with
fairy lights made out of actual fairies. Each store has beautiful
signs saying they are closed. They few that were open
seemed look like they were designed for night time. Do the
appearances change between day and night?
Lea snaps herself out of her trance. She cannot let herself
be distracted, she has to carry out the plan. She looks at
Harry and sees his face filled with wonder. Still holding his
hand, Lea gently pulls Harry to where Gringotts is. Luckily, a
building was glowing with golden lights that make it obvious
that it is a bank and it is open.
Entering the bank, Lea notices that there are many tables
without a goblin working, about half. She guesses this is
because it is night time, they would probably be full during
the day. Lea is grateful that they work at night at all, it would
have been annoying to find a place to wait until morning. Also,
there currently are not wizards around to question why two
young children are here.
Lea and Harry walk up to the podium and waits for the
goblin a little farther back so he could still see her, they were
smaller than the goblins. Lea hopes this is the right way to be
polite. It will not change anything if they have to wait a few
minutes so it is worth a try.
Eventually, the goblin puts down his quill and looks up at us.
"How can I help you two today?" The goblin says gruffly but
politely.
Lea bows her head a little and says, "Hello sir, would you
please tell me how much an inheritance test costs?"
The goblin replies, "Taking an inheritance test is free. This
is to encourage finding lost blood lines so we can open their
bank again."
Lea mentally relaxes a little. This whole bank section of
Lea's plan is all very questionable, her knowledge could
easily be wrong. "Alright, that is nice of Gringotts. Does
the inheritance test show any magics done to the wizard,
like compulsions and things. Also does it show the wizards
physical shape?"
The goblins face seems to become concerned. Though, it
is hard to tell because Lea is not used to goblin features. The
goblin could easily be annoyed or something. "Only when
asked, is something wrong with one of you?"
"My friend here, he is acting differently than he was. I'm
worried about him." Lea says causing Harry to start to pay
attention after realizing they were talking about him.
"Hello." Harry quietly greets while bowing his head.
The goblin looks at Harry and gives a small frown. Does
goblin magic make them see things wizards cant? "Alright,
please follow me so we can go to a private room. This is not
normally done for an inheritance test, but since you asked for
the extended version, a room is provided for privacy."