Harry Evans Chapter 142: The calm before the storm (of shit)

No matter Harry’s excitement at the fact that he would likely start having access to the ability to literally break the universe when the school year began, life dragged on until that point.

Harry had passed his transfiguration O.W.L. with a distinguished O+, whatever that meant. McGonagall had explained to him that a distinguished N.E.W.T. in a subject usually sufficed to get any apprenticeship one wanted. Something for future thought, then.

Penny had passed her fourth-year Potions exam and would thus be doing her Potions O.W.L. classes a year earlier. She'd gotten an O+.

The rest of the summer, Harry spent finished some minor work on the vanishing cabinet, continuing to make progress on the book of Eibon and putting the finishing touches on Draco’s occlumency.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the duelling debacle, its final name, got swept over by other news, international and domestic.

In Britain, Fudge started making waves, having been noted to appear in every major department to throw in his opinion, polarising some but gaining the favour of others who supported his proposals of rather radical reform. 

Notably, every one of his suggestions was aimed at modernising the department in a way that somehow balanced out the interests of both the noble and the progressive factions. Considering that the progressives were more interested in reform, the compromise often ended up being that the person chosen to lead its implementation came from the noble faction. The reform would persist long after the decommission of any such leader, which was the compromise. The pure-bloods were happy that they were trusted to create the culture of the reform being implemented, while the progressives were happy that a reform was being made at all.

“Moody says that a lot of the new auror response and investigation doctrine comes from the muggle field of criminology,” Tonks explained while sipping her cup of disgusting coffee at her small kitchen table.

Harry, sitting across from her, raised an eyebrow. “Well, it makes sense that muggles would be more advanced in their systemic thinking when it comes to approaching cases. After all, their education system is based on logic, not metaphor. But still, how come you’re already talking to Moody?”

Tonks puffed out her chest. “You’re looking at the top of the class, Harry boy.” She deflated and grumbled the next bit. “Even if the class consists of three people.” 

The redhead laughed and shook his head. “May the other two tremble in fear,” he joked.

“Anyway,” Tonks continued. “Moody is invited as the occasional speaker, and the higher-ups, particularly James Potter, have been pressuring him to participate in the mentoring program for a while now. I think he’s snooping around in advance.”

“You think you caught his eye?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. “Getting Moody as your auror mentor and later senior partner if you get along well… That’s like getting Flitwick as your duelling teacher, or Dumbledore as your transfiguration master.”

“He seemed interested enough to have a chat with me over some coffee in the mess hall,” Tonks said with a smile. “He was impressed when I noticed that he slipped something in my cup. If I hadn’t trained my magical senses, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Good job,” Harry praised. Tonks had been doing his patented dual development plan of sense deprivation chamber, magic sensing, and occlumency headache resistance training in her seventh year. It was good that it was finally coming in handy.

“Of course, then he proceeded to attack me in the middle of everyone eating lunch. Lost that duel, got tied up and left in a broom-closet without my wand. Took me an hour to regain consciousness and another hour to get free. The dean gave me back my wand and said not to worry about it, apparently he does it only to people he likes.”

“That’s where the…” Harry said, trailing off and tapping himself on the forehead.

“Yeah,” Tonks said with a sigh and touched the black curly bangs covering her forehead, a very rare hairstyle for the girl. She tousled them, revealing the tattoo underneath. “Won’t come off, bloody constant vigilance,” she grumbled.

“You want me to try?” Harry asked as he mentally probed at the bold letters on his friend's forehead. It was a bit hard to see in lieu of it being dark out and the lightbulb in the kitchen being a tad weak.

The girl grimaced. “Please.”

Harry pulled out his secondary wand and tapped her on the forehead before nodding a few times. “You probably tried all the finites.”

“Of course.”

“Well, there’s your issue. It’s not a charm, it's an enchantment,” Harry quickly analysed.

“You can’t enchant a person,” Tonks scoffed dismissively. 

Green eyes rolled in their sockets at the black-haired girl. “Ok, genius, sure, but you can enchant the space in front of someone’s forehead to display floating and flat but curved letters fitting almost perfectly to their contours. Then you can spell it to follow the person around in the exact position required to make it appear as if it was a tattoo.”

“So this whole time I was trying to figure it out, I wasn’t even focusing on the right thing?” Tonks asked incredulously.

“You thought it was a spell; it was an enchantment spelled to the air one nanometre in front of your forehead. Finite doesn’t work if you don’t know what you’re trying to use it on. Case solved. Either dispel the anchoring spell or learn to disenchant. The lessons are obvious, he’s telling you to learn how to deal with enchantments and how to look underneath the underneath,” Harry analysed. That was actually quite impressive. Was Moody perhaps an actually good teacher?

Tonks growled and whipped out her wand, casting a finite at her face. She leaned her head back. This time, the words ‘constant vigilance’ remained floating in the air in her kitchen.

“Seems you’re still going to have to learn disenchantment if you want to have that thing out of your kitchen,” Harry noted amusedly.

His friend glared at the offending words, as if simply mustering enough hatred could make them disappear.

“The festival starts in one hour. Leave it for tomorrow,” she decided.

Harry simply shook his head at his 19-year-old friend. “You’re too naive, never show up to these events on time,” he cautioned. “The energy isn’t there yet, and the responsibility of helping build it is a bit too heavy for me.”

“What, you don’t have the party in you?” Tonks ribbed.

“Tonight’s Nirvana, tomorrow’s Blur,” Harry told her.

“Don’t know either of them, but you bought the tickets, so…” Tonks said while picking at her ear with her pinky.

“You’ll thank me in five years,” Harry remarked simply.

The girl shrugged and waved her wand, a bottle of fire-whisky flew from a high cupboard and slammed with a satisfying clap into her other raised hand.

“Want some?” she asked while pouring a shot directly into her now-empty coffee cup.

“I think I’ll abstain this time, just enjoy the music in my most pure state,” Harry remarked. He wasn’t going to concerts, festivals or raves nearly often enough to need chemical energy if the music was good. Also, he wanted to save memories like this for the future, when he could relieve them in a pensieve. Taking any substances might interrupt his perception.

“Really?” Tonks asked, jiggling the bottle and making the liquid splash around.

Harry gave her a stern look. “Even if I was taking something, it wouldn’t be that swill,” he said with a sneer and put the ageing potion in his pocket onto the table. “Also, aren’t you supposed to have moral conduct worthy of your station? Since when does offering minors alcohol fit in with being an auror?”

Tonks blushed angrily. “You’re the one who gave me my first joint, you wanker!”

“Tell it to the press,” Harry said with a disdainful sniff. “I haven’t been to a good concert since last year; my energy for enjoying music is maxed out. Taking anything would just disturb the vibe. And even if I was taking anything, it wouldn’t be weed or alcohol. Shit doesn’t last long enough for these events.”

Tonks looked at him with wide eyes. “Harry!” she exclaimed, before taking a shot and wagging a finger in the air in reprimand. Her face suddenly morphed grotesquely, taking on the shape and form of NBA superstar Michael Jordan. “Stop it. Get some help,” she said in the man’s iconic deep voice before unmorphing the abomination.

Harry looked at her in disgust. “Once a copper, always a copper,” he said. “MDMA and Psilocybin both have great potential to resolve psychological trauma when used in a controlled environment while also providing relatively low-risk opportunities of engaging with different states of mind.” He picked up his ageing potion and downed it. “But I guess we aren’t ready for that conversation yet, seeing as the pharmaceutical lobbyists have obviously even started influencing the magical world.”

“Harry, what the fuck are you talking about?”

-/-

The concert was awesome.

-/-

“That’s the last of it,” Harry said as he put down the large box containing his Muggle clothes. 

He looked at the now barren corridor on the second floor of his family's Privet Drive home.

The pictures had been removed, no more blonde and red-haired children smiling at the visitors.

The paintings had been taken down, and the cabinets stared listlessly at the moving boxes taking up spaces. Empty and unadorned.

Some furniture was getting left behind. It was cheaper to buy it again in Barcelona than to transport it there.

Vernon had finalised the purchase of a small house in the almost city centre district of Garcia. Apparently, the perfect time to make a deal because the price had fallen for the first time in 1992 after tripling during the previous six years. The Olympics had just ended, which was an interesting historical factoid, leaving the city in a temporary fog of indecisiveness as to where to go.

Harry personally knew that the Barcelona tourist boom arguably started from this very event, as many people internationally got to see how much potential the city had. It quickly developed a major tourism industry, and business boomed. In the span of only three decades, most locals were priced out of their own neighbourhoods.

Harry was happy that under his investment advice, the Dursleys would start at the forefront of British gentrification of Spanish cities and coastlines.

He excused himself with the fact that they wouldn’t be renting out the property, but actually living in them.

Maybe that would save them from getting splashed in the face with a water gun in thirty years.

He made his way down to the stairs. His bedroom now only had his bed, which he would sleep on one last time, and some miscellaneous stuff he would take to Hogwarts tomorrow. Nothing more to do.

“Ready for the big trip in two days?” Harry asked and leaned against the railing as he watched his uncle lug around large boxes while his aunt fretted about the porcelain potentially not surviving the trip unless it was wrapped in fifty layers of newspaper.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Vernon grunted with a red face as he slammed home the last box.

Tomorrow, Harry would leave for Hogwarts and Dudley for Eton. The day after, Vernon would drive the accumulated boxes, beds and some indispensable furniture to Barcelona in a rented truck.

A week later, Vernon would start his new job. Repairing antique cars to a driveable condition. What a dream.

Thankfully, the 1992s were still a time when no company forced you to relocate, especially if you had a family, only to then make the position disappear. Times were not yet so grim as they would one day be.

Harry sighed. “Dudley’s still locked in his room?”

“Yep,” Vernon grunted.

“So dramatic,” Petunia said with a sigh as she ran around aimlessly without accomplishing anything. She was probably confusing the nosy neighbours, although the fact that the Dursleys were moving was already well-known in the neighbourhood.

“Well, I’ll be happy as a clam to see the new place in the winter,” Harry said. The likelihood of the city being unbearably hot in the month of December was non-existent. Although, to be fair, these days he could always just apply a cooling charm.

“Glad at least one of you isn’t giving me a nervous breakdown,” Vernon grunted before sitting down and loudly opening a can of beer that Petunia had somehow known to bring him.

He gulped it down in its entirety, sweat beading down his forehead.

“Don’t take it too hard,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes. “He’s a teenager; most of them are like that. In four years, he’ll be thanking you that he doesn’t live in a suburb anymore.”

“Hope you’re right about that one,” Vernon grumbled.

“I don’t think there’s a teenager in the world who would really prefer living in a British suburb, no matter how close it may be to London, over the city centre of a metropolis,” Harry reassured the man before excusing himself.

He’d been packing the whole day. Even magic didn’t help that much when you really owned so many things. When had he become such a hoarder?

Well, tomorrow it was off again, just him and a luggage to a magical school up in the Scottish highlands.

Four years later, that still sounded cool as all shit.

The dairy had been destroyed by him, and so he was preparing himself to enjoy one very nice and relaxing year at Hogwarts.

After the last three that he’d had, he really deserved it…