Chapter 9: Time spent in reconnaissance

DISCLAIMER: Does Dumbledore choose a situation for Harry despite a clear warning from a colleague that there are red flags and then do nothing about it for sixteen years? If so, I don't own Harry potter.

Chapter 9

Once the boys are educated, fed, allowed their evening telly privileges and put to bed, I lock up the magical paraphernalia - the escritoire-thingy has a secure cabinet in it that should suffice to keep the boys out - but keep the first volume of Magical Measurement out to read.

Petunia sniffs a bit at the sight of the magical text, but lets me get on with it. I could ask for no better sign that she's getting with the program than that.

-oOo-

After putting Vernon to bed I make an attempt at reading the book in spirit form, having left it on the dining table for exactly this purpose. Conclusion: it's possible, and I'll be making use of this possibility, but good grief it's a tiresome way to read. I'm used to having feedback from the book or screen I'm reading off - either the tactile impression of serious literature or the ability to tab away into another window for what-have-you. Somehow floating over a page and turning the pages by effort of will is a lot less satisfying. I'm reading, but not enjoying it as I normally do.

By way of break I take a turn around the neighbourhood, listening for magic that's not the spells on Number Four - curiously, there's nothing on Mrs. Figg's house except possibly whatever it is that makes the magical paraphernalia in her spare bedroom really, really quiet until you get very close. I've no idea whether it's a protective spell or just a normal characteristic of the magic stuff she's got. I can certainly hear Number 4 from quite a long way away. I can't plot the attenuation over distance, not having got to that bit in Magic of Measurement yet, assuming there is one. If it turns out to be inverse-square I will be decidedly grumpy about it: I want my magic magical damn it, not just based in physical laws that ran and hid when it looked like science was coming.

Back in the house I check on the good behaviour sticker chart Petunia now has attached to the fridge with a couple of magnets. I'd suggested it as a way for Dudley to earn the Optimus Prime I'd bought him, while Harry shyly asked for 'a book' as his prize. They've both managed a day free of the naughty step while I've been out, so they're both a star closer to their prizes. Petunia's playing favourites for Dudley slightly, but I'm not too worried about that. If Harry's finding it harder to earn stars for the chart, he'll try harder: I suspect the most we can hope for with Dudley is 'not in jail before thirty' because while Smeltings does appear to be able to polish turds like Vernon and Dudley, the power of Old Boys Clubs is already waning and won't be worth the price charged by the time Dudley finishes. He'll get his A Levels and a degree from a second or third tier university and hopefully a slot in a graduate trainee program somewhere. Harry's got a lot more potential and a bit of frustration now will pay off in diligent work habits later.

I'm woolgathering, of course. Not needing to sleep leaves me with a lot of time to fill and I'd been hoping to get a great deal of reading done until I discovered that disembodied reading is a massive chore. I'm going to get back to it in just a minute, honest. Then I remember something I said idly, almost in jest, to Petunia, about giving Vernon a chance to talk in his dreams. I've not visited Harry in his dreams since the night I ate Tom, but with the ability to apparate in spirit form (I've not dared try it while possessing Vernon, since Tom managed to fatally splinch the first host he ever tried to apparate with.) I've been able to keep a regular check on Harry for nightmares.

However, now I've got Tom's skills, I can get into Vernon's dreaming mind. It'll be good practice for helping Harry - that first time was wing-and-a-prayer stuff - and while I'm not even close to being qualified for this, letting Vernon talk about what's bothering him probably can't hurt. And, probably more than I'd be comfortable admitting out loud, it is an excuse not to float over the dining table enduring the work of reading without the corresponding pleasure, I pop upstairs to get started.

I've not actually peeped in on the sleeping Dursleys since those first few nights, and I'm pleased to see that they're a lot less separated while they sleep than they were. I still can't see any difference in Vernon's appearance, now I'm looking at him from the outside, but I've got him an appointment with a hospital dietitian. The cunning machines for quick ECGs haven't hit the market yet, so the only assessment I've got for his fitness is the one I can make from the inside: crap, but somewhat improved from the previous 'disastrous'.

Fortunately, he'd not got quite bad enough to be suffering with sleep apnea: sleep deprivation on top of everything else would have made him entirely intolerable. For now, he's getting actually restful sleep and not snoring. I drift close enough to pick him up and I'm in luck: he's already dreaming.

Inside his dream it's a corridor painted the pale green that is for some reason favoured by people doing the decor in institutions. There are schoolboys flowing past, their faces indistinct. They're not in the full Smeltings uniform - they don't make the boys wear the complete 18th century rig-out for classes any more, a change made during Vernon's father's time. Vernon's stood, a full-grown man, amid the boys rushing for their next class, plainly not knowing where to go. He's got an anxious look on his face and he's standing like a toddler paralysed by indecision.

And he's not just having the back-at-school dream, oh no. He's having the no pants back at school dream. The saving grace of it is that Vernon's body image is based on his university days when he still boxed and played rugby: in his mind he's still that hefty boar of a man, no great athlete, but he could pull his weight in the ring and on the pitch alike. I still didn't need to see a naked grown man in a school corridor.

You're wearing clothes, I think at him, and then he is. Sort of a blurry out of focus thing that could be a suit, could be pyjamas, like he's not quite sure what kind of clothes to dream up for himself.

I decide to help him along a bit. Everything's going to be fine, you're here for a chat with a friendly face.

His clothes firm up. Slacks and a shirt and tie.

"Vernon," I say, "why don't you step into my office and we can have a bit of a chat, eh?"

It's a moment's imagination to create a door and beyond it Dr. Green's office. I liked Dr. Green, and not just for his not-a-foot-wrong professionalism, I suspect I'd've enjoyed his company outside a therapeutic context. (Which is either true or evidence of him being really good at his job.) Desk with an anachronistic NHS-issue PC on it, small bookcase, and three large and comfy chairs. I dress myself in the appearance of Dr. Green - small, bearded, tweedy, with a generally serious demeanour. As well as setting the mood for my own benefit, it has the advantage of showing any possible legilimens a face that, like my own, won't exist for more than thirty years. The real Dr. Green, assuming this universe has one, is probably an extremely junior House Officer somewhere and may not even have decided to be a psychiatrist yet.

I always liked this office: it reminded me of the better tutorials I'd have during my student years. Academic, friendly, a learning-by-talking sort of place. Dr. Green had to retire with ill health before we finished, but it was a good place for me while it lasted. I imagine us seated rather than go through the usual politenesses. "What I'm hoping we can do, Vernon, is have you just talk about how you feel about your life."

There's a long silence. I was expecting this, Vernon's probably got Strong Views on headshrinkers and the people who go to them. Talking about your feelings? Lot of hippy nonsense. Probably.

"It's you, isn't it?" Vernon is suddenly pin-sharp, high resolution. Fully present. I wonder if this is what lucid dreaming looks like.

"Mmm?"

"I know you think I'm stupid. I'm not as stupid as you think I am. I know what's going on."

Ah. He's recognised me through the Dr. Green disguise. "I rather hoped you did. I'm not going to be with you forever, Vernon."

"I wondered…" Long pause.

"Wondered?"

"Wondered if you being here meant I didn't have to do it any more." Another long pause. "Any of it."

Since I'm not actually in possession of Vernon right now, I'm not affected by his feelings, and so I maintain the cool clarity of my spirit existence. I do have an intellectual sort of sympathy for him, that tired-of-it-all sentiment is where suicidal thoughts often start. I let the silence drag on.

"Thought about doing a Reggie Perrin, you know." I nod, acknowledging what he's saying. It's good to know he was only thinking about faking his suicide, leaving his clothes on a beach somewhere. You can go a surprisingly long time on thoughts like that before you start thinking about Making It All Go Away in a more drastic and irrevocable fashion.

Another long silence.

"Know what you're doing for m'boy." Vernon says at length. He won't look at me while he speaks, but it's the most emotion I've seen him show in this dream. "Heard what you said to Pet about the way we were treating him. What you're doing, obvious now you point it out."

"I had to learn, too, you know. Nobody's a parent naturally, and it can be hard to accept that what your parents taught you wasn't right." I stop there. I probably should be talking less. Why did I think doing this was a good idea, again?

"You're a man, then. Not some, some … creature? Thought you were a devil of some kind at first."

"A man, yes. Much like you." Except, you know, better in every way, you tiny-minded gammon-faced imbecile. "Older, of course, and with a very different life. And I died, and was sent back, with only the knowledge I gained while alive."

"You were one of … them, though?" I've seen Vernon's memories of the two occasions he met James Potter, the only wizard with whom he was ever acquainted, and the two men didn't get on. Vernon had had no favourable impression of the wizarding world from Petunia even before his innate xenophobia kicked in, and Potter had no more notion of how to talk to a muggle than any other sheltered pureblood wizard. Petunia probably could have rescued the situation - she certainly knew enough to explain away what Vernon took as mockery - but chose not to. There was nothing about any of it that was unsalvageable, had Petunia chosen otherwise. (There was actually some thawing as regards Lily: they were back on exchanging-christmas-present terms by the time they were both pregnant with their sons.)

"I was, as it happens, not. I was a solicitor until I retired. Knew about the whole magic thing, was never a part of it."

That gets Vernon to look at me. "You've done magic, though."

"I have. Had to die and come back to do it, so I wouldn't recommend it."

"The thing with the wand, the Luke Skywalker thing. I felt that."

I let myself smile. "Good, wasn't it?"

He nods. Spends some time in thought. "The one Pet's sister married. He was a complete oik."

"What makes you say that about him, Vernon?"

I can feel the memories churn within him. "Talked a lot of nonsense."

"It made sense in his world. Yours wouldn't make sense in his, I shouldn't wonder. I've no personal experience, but I imagine the magic makes quite a lot of difference."

Vernon scoffs. And, to my quiet amusement, harrumphs.

I don't imagine I'm going to crack through his armour of ignorance by reasoned argument, that only works on the basically reasonable. Persuasion's probably going to be a long, slow slog too. Still, soonest begun, soonest done. Step one, find terms he understands to frame it in. "You've talked to the boffins in the design and development office at work, yes? Like they're talking a different language sometimes, isn't it?"

"I suppose. But they're boffins about something useful."

"Useful in a way you understand, certainly. Useful in a way I understand, too. I used to do a lot of civil engineering contracts and cases, I shouldn't wonder some of those projects used Grunnings products." I know they didn't, of course, but a little flattery won't do any harm in rapport-building. And I can see a way to bring this closer to home for him. "I couldn't tell you what useful magic James Potter knew, never met the man, or that I would understand the use of it even if he showed me. Petunia, though, she's got a touch of it, we think. Comes out in the garden and the greenhouse, you've seen how much better they are than any of the neighbours."

It's true, too. Number Four was new-built when the Dursleys moved in. Which meant the parts of the plot laid to garden were basically lawn turf laid over bare soil with builders' rubble churned into it. Even if it had been good soil to start with, all the crap in it from construction should have made it a difficult proposition for gardening for years, and all of the neighbours' gardens reflect that tiresome reality.

Petunia just … planted. And it all worked first time. I've no idea if it's magic or if she's just uncannily good, but I certainly never did that well in any garden I owned. I'm sticking with the magic explanation because Petunia's sense of gleeful vindication has done more to get her on-side than anything else I've said apart from the mean-spirited crack I made about Lily sending her regards.

"She's … one of them?" Vernon had promised not to hold Lily against Petunia, largely on Petunia's description of the student magic she'd seen. I imagine he's wondering if his wife's about to start wearing a pointy hat and doing things with toads.

"Not by their standards, but Petunia's quite right to say they put on airs. She didn't have the right sort of magic for their school, so she didn't matter to them. She's been getting that attitude from them since she was a little girl, so she was naturally bitter about it. Even though her version of it - which she didn't even realise she had - is undeniably useful."

"Will Dudley - ?"

"Not impossible, but I doubt it. You might have a magical grandchild at some point, though. Or a great grandchild, if you live that long."

A tension I hadn't noticed building goes out of him. "Want the boy to have a decent life. Want for nothing."

"Better than you had?"

"Of course. You've got different ideas than I had. Modern ideas. When did you die?"

"Vernon, this is about you, not me. And my ideas aren't that modern, not at all. Dudley shouldn't want for his needs, and I assure you he doesn't need the amount of sugar you were letting him have. I could go on, but you've been present when I've been explaining this stuff to Petunia. You've been present when we've seen the results."

"He'll be a scrawny runt -" And I've got you, I realise. His sports as a young man were about strength, and he's got hopes for Dudley choosing the same ones. And since two of my children were into sports - more than I ever was - I've got a point of connection.

"He'll never be that, Vernon. He's inherited your build, no mistaking that. What he needs is the muscle to go with it, like you had ten years ago. Both my sons got their build from my mother's father, who was much like you. Built like brick shithouses, the pair of them. Younger of the two played lock for his school and university. Quite the sight on the school team, he was a head taller than anyone else on the field." Vernon perks up at that. Oh, do we have a rapport now?

"You played, yourself?" he asks.

"Rugger? No, only when they made me because it was what we were doing in games that week. Cricket was more the thing for me. Wasn't ever very good at it, either. Reserve for the school team in recognition of sheer enthusiasm for the game and pickup games in the park was about my speed."

"And your boys went out for rugger instead?"

"Just the younger of the two. Eldest didn't care for games all that much, more a fan of motor racing. Neither of them much liked cricket, only sport we all had in common was the clays. At which my daughter was the best out of the four of us, girl took to it like she was born with a gun under her arm."

Vernon actually chortles at that. "Was she sporty at all?"

"She rode, because all girls go through a horsey phase as far as I can tell, but she was the one who came out hiking with me most often. Helpful, too, she was the only one the bloody dog'd behave reliably for. Great big Alsatian cross he was, bit of husky and collie in him too, wilful as you please, took a lot of managing. Until my daughter took hold of his lead, at which point you could've had the bugger in the ring at Crufts for obedience." Pretty much any animal was like that with her. We used to tease her about being a Disney Princess in disguise.

We end up having quite a long conversation about Vernon's hopes for his son. And that gets him talking about his own school days, and all I really have to do is nod, and hmm, and mildly agree in a couple of places that I've experienced something similar. When I tell him that it's all we've got time for this week, Vernon seems a little disappointed. Got you!

I've no idea what the time is outside, of course, and I let Vernon fade off into undreaming sleep while I scoot away - dawn is on the verge of breaking, making it a bit after six. I'll be getting Vernon up in half an hour or so.

I'm pretty sure I've just crossed an ethical line by starting that with Vernon: I don't even have a tithe of the education needed to be a proper therapist. I don't even know, really-and-truly, that there's no chance of harm. On the other hand, Vernon needs something over and above being a passenger in his own life while I fix it as best I can and generally set a better example than he's had basically ever. If I keep it to regular friendly chats and just let him help himself by thinking out loud? Would that work? Help slightly? At least not do any harm?

It's a failing I've had for a long time, and nothing to do with any of my actual issues: a tendency to act first and agonise afterward. There's an old joke about the difference between a good billiards player and a bad one: good players chalk their cues before playing a stroke, and bad ones after. I'm going to have to monitor Vernon carefully to see how he's coping: I don't know what I could do to put right any harm I've done, but the bright side at least is that I don't see how I can be making him worse.

I look in on Harry, and he's peacefully asleep. It has been a month and the last of the scabs have dropped off his scar. It's pink rather than the angry red it used to be, and looks like a healing wound rather than an ominous mark. I go close to 'sniff' for evil - finding none - and am reminded of the encounter in Diagon Alley yesterday. I don't know that I came in contact with an actual Dark Mark, but it strikes me that I should know more about the thing, what with having the knowledge somewhere in the wreckage of Tom's mind. I try for, and get, the knowledge of how to apply and use the Mark. I was hoping to get it without the associated experiential memories, but I'm just not that lucky. Tom designed a big old ceremony, with dead muggles and various disgusting ritual acts that were completely unnecessary to the actual marking, he just thought it was funny to get a lot of dignified pureblood wizards prancing about degrading themselves.

Oddly enough he hit on one of the things that nasty groups like the Death Eaters have done over and over again since time immemorial: get their new recruits to do something wildly transgressive to make them feel set apart from their old lives. At a guess - I'm not going over the whole lot because yuck - it let him know who was in it for the cause and who for the mayhem by observing their reaction to the ongoing fuckery. It'd only be a rough guide, of course, because the two aren't exclusive.

The essence of the thing is that underneath all the showmanship, the protean-charmed tattoo was actually an old Roman Republic slave-marking and control spell, the Stigma Servus, which never really went in to fashion because a group of gladiators in Capua started the Third Servile War rather than submit to it. Two years of bloody insurrection later, the Stigma was quietly shelved. Also, what with the magic tattoos being just the last straw, the legal condition of slaves began to be improved.

The effect of the mark was to allow a master to summon his slaves, bend their wills toward loyalty but not outright control them, and if he knew the right control spells, defend himself against them without need of weapons, inflicting debilitating pain, unconsciousness and brief bouts of paralysis. Tom was sensible enough to set his words of control in parseltongue, but other than that relied on security-through-obscurity to hide the fact that he'd hacked a back door into his minions' minds. If there was any long-term harmful effect on the slave from having the thing applied, the Romans either never found out or didn't record it. It may well also have been that every recipient died before any long-term problem could show up. Between the Servile War, the mass crucifixions that followed it, and the generally shitty conditions that slaves endured at that time, it's not like many of them saw their golden years.

I make a note of that: if we can stop Tom from coming back, publishing about the stigma servus and the potential for bearers of the Dark Mark to eg. go berzerk would do a fair bit to curb their influence in wizarding society. It sidesteps the whole 'I was under the Imperius' bullshit into the bargain: it's not like slaves are usually volunteers, after all. Doesn't have to be true, either. In a society where Rita Skeeter can make a living doing what she does, innuendo and talking points will do most of the heavy lifting.

That detail taken care of, I take control of Vernon and get him out of bed at half six on the dot, just before Petunia's alarm goes off. I'm downstairs at the kitchen table with a cup of tea without really thinking about it - I might be a sleepless spirit, but Vernon takes a while to spin up to speed of a morning.

Petunia breaks the silence. "How long do you think it'll take?"

"What in particular? Fixing things up around here or just getting Vernon into shape?"

"Vernon first, I suppose."

I rock a hand back and forth. "A year or two, maybe? As soon as I can get a medical clearance for actual exercise - I'm seeing the dietitian this week and there's a full physical to go with that - I'm going to get him physically in shape. Let's say we'll review it after a year. I went into his dreams last night and had a chat, hopefully I can get him into the habit of actually thinking about how he feels and acts and that'll help him along a lot."

"He knows what's going on, then?"

"Yep. Turns out we have a few things in common - my second oldest played rugger just like he's hoping Dudley will, to pick just one. I should see which of the local clubs has a kids team he can get on. Little Lions, touch rugby, something like that. John didn't get into it until he was third year at secondary school and the PE teacher noticed he had a lad who was about half a scrum by himself, so I'm not sure what the options are at Dudley's age." Or whether the options I heard about in the future started this early. I'm sure I've seen references to colts games, but that's older kids, I think. "He's far too young for boxing, of course, but something to help the boys' fitness along would be good on general principles alone."

"I suppose. And you'll still be, what, just floating around once Vernon's back awake?"

"That's one option. The one I'm hoping for is figuring out some method of making myself a body of my own. I know it's possible but the only method I know about is pretty horrible and I'm pretty sure impossible for me anyway. One of the sacrifices in the ritual is the bone of one's father and unless something unfortunate has happened the old boy's still using all of them." I've no idea who'd count for an enemy and I don't have any servants. Nor would I want one who thought self-mutilation was a reasonable management instruction. "I'm banking on me being cleverer than the chap who did that one to come up with some way of, I don't know, growing a body with no consciousness in it that I can inhabit."

I have a bit of a moment with that thought: I'd been thinking all wizard-like about conjuring some sort of construct like the one Tom made in the graveyard, and forgetting how much broader and deeper a reference pool I have compared to him. Growing clones for transplant purposes - to the extent of putting an old brain into a young body - isn't quite a stock trope in science fiction, but I can think of a couple of works that feature it without trying terribly hard. Turns up in a couple of RPGs too. Bears thinking about. Has anyone figured out spells for working with DNA? Note to self, et cetera.

"I suppose you're going to have to change more wizard money too?"

"I see your point with that, actually," I say, having covered a pause to think with a mouthful of cereal. "The stuff I've got to try and figure out the spells on the house is for your benefit as much as Harry's, so it's not unfair that it's a household expense. A new body is just for me, though. Have to figure out where to get more cash from."

Petunia doesn't pass any further comment, and we get on with our days. She's set the day aside for gardening, and since the forecast was crappy I decided to take the boys to the Natural History and Science museums, because you can't really go wrong with a day of dinosaurs and steam engines.

-oOo-

We return to routine for a couple more months. Harry gets settled in at school and Petunia feigns relief among the gossips at the school gate that her 'problem child' nephew is finally showing improvement - slyly taking credit, the cheeky cow - and Dudley is making a lot more progress. Finding them a rugby, soccer or cricket club that'll take them under 7 turns out to be a bust. There's a couple of footballs among the stuff Dudley has been bought and never touched, so I take the boys down to the rec and teach them to play three-and-in and some basic ball drills. That turns into me refereeing a four-a-side game when some other kids join in, with a couple of other dads as completely unnecessary linesmen. It being autumn, we go home filthy and all three of us get a proper bollocking off Petunia. Worth it. (Besides, I think she doesn't actually mind all that much, Dudley's absolutely full of how much fun he's had.) Sunday morning footy on the park turns into a regular thing, and I end up making the acquaintance of a few of the local dads. And, because the Fast Show won't be out for ten years or so, my Ron Manager routine - 'jumpers for goalposts' - establishes me as the neighbourhood comedy genius. (And prophet, once the telly catches up with my plagiarism.) There's a junior cricket set among the store of untouched toys, too, but that's going to have to wait until summer comes around again.

The Dietitian gives Vernon's carcass a thorough working over with the usual panoply of medical tools, frowns over blood test results and furnishes me with a diet plan that looks eminently achievable, especially when she assures me that apart from salt, herbs and spices Don't Count. Exercise should be, apparently, light and low-impact for at least the next six months at which point I have another appointment. The walks get brisker, the hikes I take the boys on get longer (though no more challenging, the North Downs aren't what you'd call spectacular, I had worse on my walk to school of a morning) and the boys discover that being used as weights for lifting is entirely hilarious. Every day moving around as Vernon gets to be less and less of a chore, and he starts being able to fit in clothes he hasn't worn in five years. The ten pounds a month rate of weight loss is going to taper off before too long, there's muscle building under the fat, but I reckon Vernon will be down to fifteen stone by Christmas.

Harry's legal paperwork proceeds nicely. Harry acts all Proper and Serious in the solicitor's office and it turns out that we don't have to wait for Lily's death certificate; the fact that he's been left with Vernon and Petunia and Lily isn't around is enough to get at least a conditional guardianship in place, with a formal residence order (that we don't have to physically attend court for) in the meantime. Death certificates for James and Lily will have to wait until the private inquiry agent - Legal Aid cover the disbursement, to my relief, the buggers are worse for bill-padding than lawyers - feels he can say on oath that they're nowhere to be found alive. The terminology is just different enough from the version I learned - I'm guessing there's a big procedural reform in the pipeline - to be mildly confusing, and I choke down the urge to start reading up. We're basically just waiting for a court date, likely to be some time in the new year, to go before a judge in chambers and confirm to him that this is what Harry wants and that he's happy where he is.

What little spare time I've got is devoted to hacking my way through Magic of Measurement and the rest of the books, getting all the knowledge I've stolen from Tom squared away. Conclusion: I've got two main problems.

The first one - and the biggest, because I can't solve it immediately - is that Tom's knowledge came across, but his muscle memory and the magical equivalent (which definitely exists but which no two theorists give the same name to, the contrary bastards) very much didn't. What this means is that although I've all the knowledge I need for those spells, actually casting them is going to require practise, and a lot of it. And, when I get past the basics, someone to spot me who can reverse the inevitable fuckups. I'm not going to get far with an unreliable lumos and all the variations on matchstick-to-needle I can do, so at some point I'm going to need a tutor and the 'foreigner new to wand-work' ploy is going to get another run out. The other embuggerance about this is that an ability to do even intermediate wand-work would cut the second problem right down to size.

Said second problem is that without better wand skills than I've got, the tools for surveying the spells on the house are going to cost. The surveying instruments are simple enough - they're things Vitruvius would recognise, apart from the sextant - and most of the lenses, prisms, lanterns and so forth that are needed as secondary equipment are easily enough bought from catalogue suppliers. Very few of the items are too terribly expensive, but they will add up. Add on the tools needed to write runic spells on them to enchant them (paint will do for temporary work, but the right paint is lead-based and hard to get hold of so I'm going to have to make my own if Diagon Alley doesn't sell it) and a whole shopping list of magical materials, magical glass, and surveying stakes in various exotic materials. It's going to add up fast.

I've been making cheap cracks about Vernon's golf club fund but it would take quite a dent even if I go at it as frugally as possible. And, in all fairness, that fund ought to be spent on the boys before anything else. I'm out on one of my neighbourhood float-arounds, chatting with the church-grim (Good boy!) by way of break from reading when I figure it out.

"The thing is, Skriker," for so I have named him, after the Black Dog legend of my own hometown, "get-rich-quick schemes never work, and even if my wizardry was up to clever schemes like using repair charms on written-off cars, it's the sort of thing that only works if you make a business of it. Which I don't have time for because I have to keep Vernon in his job."

Skriker nuzzles up close, and then darts off to sample a smell among the gravestones, sticking his nose in an overgrown bit that the sexton has missed with the mower. Supernatural guardian of the churchyard he may be, but he's still fundamentally a dog.

"Treasure-hunting might do the trick," I say, taking his meaning, "but again it's a time-intensive business even with magic. I'd need to have started years ago to have the money now, and I don't think I can repeat the time-travel trick."

We pace on a bit, reading off the gravestones and generally ambling about when it hits me. "Hang on, what if Tom has a stash or two hidden away? All the stuff he needed for his resurrection had to come from somewhere and it'd make sense to include some cash among that. Plus, if I rob it all, it's denying the enemy resources. Well done Skriker. Right, I'm off to find a quiet spot to go eat some more Tom. You be a Good Boy and guard this graveyard while I'm gone." Skriker boofs an acknowledgement and escorts me to the lych-gate.

Tom grumbles in the background, but he's disjointed and incoherent now. I've taken less than a third of his life away from him, roughly speaking, but they were all formative, learning experiences. They're the connective tissue in his mental makeup, and with them gone the disjointed bits don't make a functioning personality. Haunting one of the unoccupied houses, I get to work on memories of hiding away resources.

Yuck.

Turns out Tom has a password-locked vault at Gringotts that has a parseltongue password to stymie anyone who figures out the password for the cart ride down. I'm going to need to take the boys to the zoo and test out that particular skill in the reptile house: the chances of finding a snake in the wild at this time of year are nonexistent, they're all hibernating. On top of that, Mr. I-Hate-Muggles, the dirty great hypocrite, has a numbered swiss account, safe deposit boxes in several banks around England, and a surprisingly diverse portfolio of investments: stocks and shares, bonds issued by half a dozen governments, and rental property across much of the north of England. And, amusingly, title to the Glebe House at Little Hangleton, which he inherited in the normal course of events. Because, to a wizard able to control people on the scale he was capable of, getting three muggles to rewrite their wills to leave everything to an illegitimate child was trivially easy. Using his possessed uncle and a little memory-editing to cover his tracks, he had their entire estate and all its rents and investment income by way of trophy from his kills.

He's hardly touched the money, either: his career as an insurrectionist was mostly financed by the idiots he recruited so the income, which was nearly fifteen grand a year in 1945 and has kept pace with inflation, has just been piling up ever since. As soon as I can sort out a suitable magical disguise - polyjuice? - I'm visiting the law firm that manages the estate for him and indulging in a bit of mind control of my own to nick the fucking lot.

The stuff I can take using just the appropriate pass-codes and numbers I can get immediately, of course, if you've got telekinesis you don't need keys for safe-deposit boxes. The reason I want to clean him out completely - beyond the obvious, denying him resources and also making him angry enough to be even stupider than normal - is that to get all the knowledge of his caches I also had to get the knowledge of building that sea-cave that Regulus Black robbed. Some of those Inferi died as sacrifices to power the spells on the place, and they did not die easy or clean.

As I say, Yuck. I want revenge for having to experience that.

-oOo-

There's no sense rushing anything, I feel. Nothing else, I need to forge a legal identity of my own that can be owner of all the stuff and bank accounts. Day trips to Manchester, Leeds, and - of all places - Crewe uses up some of Vernon's holiday entitlement and lets me visit - read 'clean out altogether' - five of Tom's safety deposit boxes. A little bit of aggressive legilimency - which isn't the Jedi Mind Trick even though it totally is I'm not giggling you're giggling - and some low-effort poltergeisting on the box locks (no need to actually master the unlocking charm if you know how locks actually work and can work them from the inside) net me over forty grand in crisp twenties - from the looks Tom exchanged for these right around decimalisation - and a burdensome amount of krugerrands and Maria Theresa thalers. Some work with a calculator and the FT suggests there's over two hundred grand's worth of bullion in the three strongboxes I've looted. The most recent date on the gold coins suggests he stopped collecting them around 1960, so he's had that much money effectively stuffed in his mattress for twenty five years. The idiot. Although not that much of an idiot, at least he's not using Galleons and Sickles as a store of wealth.

It probably isn't even stolen, either. The great and powerful Voldemort doesn't stoop to thieving from muggles, not when he's got investment income that pays year-on-year from a single act of murder. With, I suspect, some follow-up killings as various relations of the Riddles tried to contest the will that left everything to the bastard son. Not that I'm going digging in Tom's memories to know for sure, I've seen a few episodes of what Tom considers to be the correct style for robbery in other memories. Classy gentleman thief he is not. Mostly that was for magical artefacts and rare books, though. Which are in a hidden vault under the Riddles' old house along with the keys to several other deposit boxes which I'm going to have to do some foreign travel to get my hands on. Raiding the house at Little Hangleton, meanwhile, is going to have to wait until I've got somewhere to store the collection of dangerous cursed stuff.

Or until I've mastered fiendfyre to dispose of it permanently.

It is, however, enough to be going on with. Quirrell isn't going to go to Albania until late '90, possibly early '91. I've got six years in which to track everything down, steal it all, and liquidate it for investment. I'm thinking offshore trust corporation in Panama before all the cool kids start doing it. I make a note to find out just what the exchange rate in purchasing power is between the normal and magical worlds might be. Harry's got a war ahead of him, and wars cost money.

-oOo-

All of this cunning planning - and purchase of cunning instruments, which I fit in where and when I can, mostly by mail order but with a couple of visits to Diagon Alley thrown in - gets interrupted in the last week of November by a frantic call from Petunia: the school has called and the boys are in the Headmistress's office for fighting. Reassuring her that it can't be that serious, they're only five after all, I call the school and tell them I'll be there shortly.

St. Gregory's Church of England Primary School: this is the first time I've been, although Vernon has memories of last year's parents evening, and it's the same identikit mid-60s school architecture as the primary I attended. Thrown up in a hurry to accommodate the children of baby-boomers, most of the interior is painted breeze-block under the sugar-paper and childrens' art. Apparently Top Infants - the National Curriculum with its numbered years is a few years away yet - are doing Weather at the moment and there are clouds, rainbows and smiling suns all over the entrance hall.

Also in said hall is a bench outside the headmistress's office, on which there are five boys including Harry and Dudley, all of them looking at least a bit rumpled and one rat-faced little article appears to have had a nosebleed. They've all been crying. Of course they have, they've been fighting and now it's time to pay the piper. It takes a little effort to keep the smile off my face, I remember how apocalyptic being sent to the Head's office seemed at that age.

"Harry," I say, taking a knee in front of the two I'm responsible for, "you're better with words. Calmly and sensibly, please, what happened? Obviously you're both getting a talking-to, but I want to know what I'm going to be talking to you about."

Hesitantly at first, but with much nodding and yeah-ing from Dudley, Harry - with digressions and diversions, because Five Years Old - gives me the story. While they were playing Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, St. Gregory's having quite the fan community for that show, they came upon Piers Polkiss calling Katie McFarlane names. Harry wasn't front and centre for telling him to stop or they'd go and get a teacher, but he was definitely backing up Dennis Holroyd, (Aramis in their game, it is apparently important I know this, he's one of the other boys on the bench) as he did his level best to live up to the Muskehound ideal. Apparently Katie is Dennis's next-door neighbour and they walk to school together and she's All Right, For a Girl.

So far, so good, even up to the point where Dennis and Piers started shoving each other. Any member of staff at this point could have defused the whole thing by making everyone stand by the wall or similar. Clearly they didn't, distracted or just not looking the right way, and Harry tried to get between Piers and Dennis. This ends with Harry on the floor, not hurt other than his dignity, and Dudley (who I entirely agree is a very convincing Porthos, well done Dudley) took that precise moment to decide he was part of a family, and thump Piers in the face, and Katie arrived back with a teacher, who sent everyone to the Head's office.

"Well," I say, "does everyone agree that that's how it happened? Tell the truth now." I lace the last few words with a bit of magic to make the command stick. Apart from maybe Harry they're all going to be unusually honest for the next little while. I get a chorus of nods. "Wait here."

The School Secretary's thoughts tell me that the Head is already seeing Piers' dad, who is apparently Detective Constable Polkiss, Surrey Constabulary, and I mentally gird myself up for dealing with the overprotective dad of a copper's brat. Not all coppers' kids are like that, obviously, but enough are that they're a stereotype all of their own. They usually have parents who think the warrant card makes them King Shit and entitled to throw their weight around. I have fond memories of receiving a formal written apology from Lancashire Constabulary on account of knowing just how to word a letter to their Professional Standards Department; HM Constabulary take their reputation as one of the least worst police forces in the world quite seriously, and little-tin-hitler behaviour doesn't fly so well if they find out about it.

"I'm sorry, you can't go in, Mrs. Mellor is in a meeting -"

"That's quite all right. She'll want to see me right away."

"Of course, she'll want to see you right away," and yes, it's totally the Jedi Mind Trick. I'm going to have to watch that, I have a loophole in my standards of personal behaviour the exact shape of the words 'because it was funny.'

Inside the Head's office DC Polkiss is living down to my worst expectations, being the exact sort of officer that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was passed to hamstring. He's on his feet, fists planted wide apart on Mrs. Mellor's desk, and leaning over to give her the benefit of his Majestic Authority.

Mrs. Mellor, for her part, is facing him down with every evidence of steel in her spine. She's due to retire any day now, and has probably dealt with Polkiss's like before. Trouble is, you back a salty old lady like that into a corner, you've primed her to overreact: she spent her childhood getting evacuated or bombed, which left her hard as flint and just as likely to cut you if pressured. A look into her memories of the last ten minutes tells me that he's bluffing that he can have Dudley arrested for assault if he's not at least suspended. Spoiler: he can't, and if he tries I know how to use it to flush his career even in these wild-and-woolly pre-PACE days.

"Sit. Down." I surprise both of them with my entrance. And DC Polkiss in particular when he finds himself thudding into his chair with the sheer force of the psychic wallop I just gave him. The fact that I'm finally building some physical presence on to Vernon's frame doesn't hurt the impression I'm making, either. "I could hear you clear down the corridor while I was asking the boys what happened. And for your general fund of information, all of them are under eight and as such legally incapable of offending."

"My son's nose is -"

"Pssh." I don't need any magic for that, he's so unused to being talked over that he shuts up out of shock. "He's got a nosebleed, some bruising, and he's had a shock. He's also learned an important life lesson, which is that the other kids don't like bullies."

"But -"

"Don't get defensive about it you arse, all kids act up at one time or another. Find out if it's because he's upset about something and fix it. I shouldn't have to tell you this, you're supposed to be his dad. Try and remember that, rather than waving your warrant card about."

He goes all gimlet-eyed at me. With the long pointy nose and gelled-back hair the rat comparison becomes as obvious on him as it is on his son.

"Don't look at me like that," I tell him, "I'll be having a word with Dudley about measuring his responses better in future." I turn to Mrs. Mellor. "I stopped to have a word with the boys on the way in, and as far as I can tell it's just Piers and Dudley who've overstepped, and Harry seems to be more sinned against than sinning. I don't know if you're going to be talking to parents of the other two, but it seems to me that the lesson they need is about staying calm and using their words, nothing more serious than that. I assume that you've already handed out school discipline?"

"I showed them the school strap and let them hear it whack on my desk. They all know it's an option now, don't tell them I've never actually used the wretched thing. That should help drive home the lesson I presume you'll be imparting, Mr. Dursley. It also makes them feel that spending morning break tomorrow writing lines is getting off lightly." There's a little bit of a smile in the Headmistress's eyes. Having a Supportive Parent barge in while she was trying to defuse an Unexploded Idiot must have been quite the relief.

DC Polkiss, who is now thoroughly confused, says "But what about -"

It's all I can do not to roll my eyes. "Piers knocked over a little boy who my Dudley apparently feels quite protective about. Because Dudley knows Harry lost his parents and has nowhere else to go, and they've spent the summer becoming friends. Piers acting up is your problem to deal with, but I suggest you start with making him understand that there are people who will object to bullying by thumping the bully, and him whining to his dad afterward won't make a punch in the face hurt any less. Which isn't important. He's acting up because he's unhappy about something, or because you've missed a bit when teaching him how to behave. Talk to your kid, figure out the problem, and fix it. If we all do that, we can spend less time having entirely tedious conversations like this."

He sort of deflates in his chair. "I suppose you have a point."

Mrs. Mellor and I exchange a look that speaks volumes.

He goes on, "you say little Harry lost his parents?"

I nod. "It's how he came to live with us. We were a bit worried at first that he was going to be a troubled child as a result. The cover story is that my sister-in-law and her husband died in a road traffic accident. All I'm cleared to know is that it is a cover story, and I probably shouldn't be saying even that much. Harry seems to have turned a corner over the summer and touch wood, he'll be all right going forward. But, as I say, Dudley's taken it into his head to get protective of him."

Silence. Both of the other adults in the room have raised eyebrows. I'd been looking for a way to change the narrative about Harry from the poisonous gossip Petunia had been spreading. (If anyone asks, she's either been getting over-enthusiastic with the cover story, story or we blame the tendency of other gossips to exaggerate.) Polkiss being a copper will help: he'll go looking for the Potters' death and find absolutely nothing, which will be more telling than even the most elaborate cover story. Better yet, he'll find a reference to the explosion in Godric's Hollow that the Obliviators missed. One or another of these two will talk to someone, and by the time it's finished Harry will be James Bond's orphaned kid.

Polkiss takes his leave and his son, and the secretary informs Mrs. Mellor that the other two parents have arrived.

"Mr Dursley," the Headteacher says as I'm about to leave, "You mentioned being 'cleared' - is there anything I should know? I do have to consider the safety of the school."

"Other than neither confirming nor denying that I wasn't always an overweight industrial equipment salesman, no. My security clearance was in relation to a desk job, nothing terribly exciting." I smile and shrug to emphasise the no-big-deal nature of the thing. Amusingly, this is actually sort-of true: HM Government has very few in-house lawyers relative to the amount of legal work they've got, and some of the matters they need outside lawyers for come under the Official Secrets Act. Mrs. Mellor doesn't need to know that my 'clearance' was for one case that amounted to me doing a few hours' paperwork. For the Department for Education, just to drive home how not-James-Bond the whole thing was. Since she might have been asking about Harry's situation, I go on, "Anyway, as long as we don't make a to-do about Harry's presence here there won't be any trouble. Keeping him out of newspaper stories under his right name should do the trick, I think. He can be Harry Dursley to any reporter that asks."

She nods. "One last thing: the PTA are organising a Santa Claus visit for the school's carol concert and nativity play this year, and they're looking for a new Father Christmas as the old one has moved away. Can I put your name forward?"

"Oooh, that's stereotyping, that is," I say, slapping Vernon's much-diminished but still remarkably large belly with a laugh. I never had the right build to do the Santa thing in my previous life, and it always looked like a lot of fun. "Of course I'll do it. Send a note home with Harry of the date and times you want me, and whether they've got a costume or if I should sort that out myself. I'll practise my Ho Ho Ho in the meantime."

AUTHOR NOTES

I'm going to straight up admit that the difficulty with reading while disembodied is in the story purely to impose a limit. I am a voracious reader and if I was given the ability to absorb information with absolute tirelessness around the clock? This story would rapidly turn into one of those sudden-power-up fix-it fics that are a guilty pleasure of mine. (A guilty enough pleasure that I wouldn't care to perpetrate one of my own; I'm skirting close to it as it is.)

Reggie Perrin was the central character in the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, a sitcom from the 70s. The title sequence shows him stripping naked and walking into the sea, a method of real or faked suicide that became known as 'doing a Reggie Perrin' for quite some time after.

Rugby: I've played exactly one game of Rugby Union in my life and never played League at all. I only really learned the sport when my son got into it. Props and locks are the big blokes who do the heavy lifting in the scrum.

Crufts: The dog show in Britain. Been going since the back end of the 19th Century, it's been the byword for top-flight competitive dog breeding and training for as long as I can remember.

The Third Servile War is the one Spartacus is famous for leading. Ancient Rome did in fact tattoo slaves and criminals as a punishment (it's why the latin for 'tattoo', stigma, has the meaning it does in modern English). The rebellion kicked off - in magical history, the real-world cause of the revolt is obscure - when they proposed tattooing all slaves, not just the misbehaving ones.

The Fast Show - on which Ron Manager, the perennially confused old football pundit is one of the best regular turns - is well worth looking up, because even after all these years it's still funny. If you look them up on Youtube you'll also get to see a young Arthur Weasley moonlighting from his Ministry job. (They should totally have had Arthur Weasley say "You haven't seen me, right?" in the movies.) The other Potterverse actors who appeared in the Fast Show being, of course, Warwick Davis and Johnny Depp. No, really. He dropped a few crafty Fast Show quotes into the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Big fan, y'see.

Rune-painting was a thing in the cultures that used them. Even the carved runes were filled in, usually with red and white lead paint. Which had been getting rarer and rarer in Britain since the 60s.

Having ideas while talking to the dog? I do this a lot. Quite a few of the ideas that go into my writing emerge from long sessions of chat with my dog, including several in this story. Not the one that emerges from my chat with the grim in this chapter, despite the deep narrative rightness it would have been if that happened.

Corporal punishment in state schools was banned in '86: up until that date every primary school had an implement like a strap or tawse with which to hit children, usually on the palm of the hand. Fee-paying schools maintained the barbaric practise until, IIRC, the late 90s. The headteacher at my primary school in the '70s used to use only the threat as I've depicted here. Still wrong, but a step in the right direction.

Fanfic recommendation: All According To Plan on FFN by Lysandra Leigh, and on AO3, which has better support for co-authors than making them set up a joint account, by PseudoLeigha and inwardtransience. It's a very good example of outsider-coming-to-the-wizarding-world, along with being an excellent read.