Harry Potter and the Serpent Items: Part 9

Still slightly irritated over the fact that he was under surveillance, but grateful that he appeared to have gotten away without any repercussions for the spirit’s actions, Harry slipped into Diagon Alley again, heading straight for the bookstore where he swiftly got frustrated by the fact that there was absolutely no sense to the system that organised the books beyond ‘history’, ‘potions’, ‘transfiguration’ and so on and so forth.

In the end he had to ask one of the shop keepers, who had been about to ask him to leave as the store was closing and was more than willing to pile text book upon text book on him if it meant that he was going to leave. After all, as he joked to Harry as he added up the cost and took Harry’s money, not everyone could live on books alone.

Unfortunately there was nothing specifically on the Serpent Items available, though the clerk had promised to look as he had ushered Harry out of the store, but there had been a bit about Powel Redgrave in a book about the Founding of Hogwarts, and another bit about the items of power held by the four founders, and there was plenty available on Voldemort’s reign.

Carrying a magically enhanced bag that was designed to hold much more than it looked and had been offered to Harry at a discounted price when the clerk had realised that there was no way that they were getting all of Harry’s books into any less than four bags, Harry stepped back onto Diagon Alley a few hours later only to be surprised by the fact that the street was almost deserted as most of the shops had closed hours ago.

He sighed as he headed for the pub. Though he had plenty to read, it wasn’t going to be fun spending the next couple of months above a pub unless the rooms had spells that kept noise out, since if The Leaky Cauldron was anything like the Muggle pubs he’d often heard his uncle describing, it would get rather rowdy downstairs on the night times.

He was in the middle of making a mental note to write letters to his friends explaining where he was and half asking, half pleading with them to come and visit, when Harry was shocked out of his thoughts by a spell shooting past his cheek, the heat of it brushing his cheek as the spell narrowly missed its target and struck a wall, which exploded.

Immediately the two Aurors who had still been patrolling the streets, went into action, but by the time they’d acted the assailant, who had been hiding between two of the shops, was pinned down by a huge, messy furred dog who was growling ferociously and baring his teeth at the man, one of its legs pressing down firmly on the man’s wand arm.

“The dog yours, Potter?” One of the Aurors asked him, stopping him from retreating to the safety of the pub.

“Yes, he’s mine.” Harry replied, knowing the canine was nothing to do with him, but feeling a sense of loyalty to it, since it had, quite obviously, defended him and not wanting to know what the wizarding equivalent of a dog pound was like. Considering some of the magical creatures he’d met so far, it was possible the dog would get eaten while there.

The dog, whose fur was white and looked rather matted, barked and wagged its tail at the sound of Harry’s voice but didn’t move from its place on top of the man until the Auror who’d asked had physically shoved it aside.

In the split second between moving the dog and an Auror grabbing the attacker, the man on the ground vanished into thin air with a pop.

“Damn it. Apperated away.” The Auror growled, starting to cast spells a moment later in order to try and find clues.

“Are you alright Potter?” A second Auror asked, looking Harry over.

“That was a Reducto, you moron.” His partner informed him in the same tone someone would speak to a small child, “If it had hit him, you’d know about it.”

The second man scowled at his partner for a moment before turning back to Harry, “You need to get a collar on your dog.” The man paused and looked at the canine in question, “He’s covered in paint by the way, did you know?”

Harry had kind of guessed from the smell when the huge canine had stood up on its hind legs and, though it had looked thin, managed to knock him over before proceeding to lick his face, that the matted fur wasn’t a natural thing, but he had no idea how to get paint out of fur short of a long bath and... Harry paused as he realised where his train of thoughts was going.

The dog wasn’t his, it was someone else’s. It wasn’t his job to deal with the paint matted fur and even if it had been his dog he didn’t know if The Leaky Cauldron allowed pets besides owls.

“I’m hopeless with household magic.” The second Auror looked sheepish, “Or I’d clean him up for you.”

“It’s okay.” Harry waved it off as he pushed the canine away and got to his feet, “I’ll work something out.”

“Escort Potter and his pet back to the pub.” The first Auror told the second, “That might have been Black and he might try again.”

The dog growled at the sound of Black’s name and didn’t stop until Harry put his hand on the dog’s neck. Before he could really decide what he was going to do with the huge, furry menace he’d been walked back to the pub where Tom had taken one look at the Auror and ushered Harry upstairs, promising to bring food with him when he came up.

The barkeeper didn’t even say a word against it when the dog followed Harry upstairs, wagging its tail and panting happily. Hedwig didn’t like it though. She screeched at the dog repeatedly for a good five minutes before she settled down and even then Harry had had to promise her owl treats every day for the next month before she’d calmed down at all

Then had come the fun part of trying to remove rather thick white paint from rather unruly fur. It was very wet, very hard work as the dog, who had climbed into the bath without a whimper of complaint had decided for some strange reason that if he had to be wet, so did Harry.

When Tom came up, Harry requested a scrubbing brush or something from the kitchen. Tom did one better, not only did he bring up the requested brush, but he cast a pair of spells, one which removed all of the paint from the dog almost instantly, though it took several attempts, and one that set the brush to brushing the dog’s fur on its own without any input from Harry, allowing him to settle down and have his meal while the canine wolfed his down as if he hadn’t eaten in months and get straightened out.

Clean and brushed, the dog was actually quite a handsome animal. Harry had absolutely no clue what breed it was, but it had apparently adopted him and Tom had had nothing against the mutt staying here until Harry found his owner as long as it didn’t make a mess. “I wish I knew what your name was.” Harry told the dog, who was looking at him hopefully as he ate his dinner, begging for scraps off of the table. “They’re going to ask for it tomorrow when I pick up a collar and a leash...”

Harry trailed off as the dog appeared to glower at him at the words collar and leash.

“What? It’s the law... why am I talking to a dog like it can understand me?” Harry groaned at himself, “And I thought I was going crazy last year when I heard a giant snake in the walls...” The dog licked his hand and the same hand started scratching behind the dog’s ear automatically. “You’re not mine you know.”

The dog whimpered and leant against him.

“What? I’m only allowed to take one pet to Hogwarts and I already have an owl.” At the word owl, Hedwig hooted at him and Harry scooted across the room, done with his meal, and paid attention to her as well. “Feel up to taking some letters to my friends?” He asked the owl, who spread her wings in response as if to say ‘I’m ready to leave now’.

Harry chuckled and pulled a quill out of his bag, along with some spare parchment from his trunk and settled at the small table in the corner of the room. Hedwig landed on the back of the second chair, watching him write as the dog curled up at his feet.

It was surprisingly relaxing to have the two animals so close and by the time Harry had finished his letters and sent Hedwig off with them he had almost calmed down from the day’s scares. Though he still wanted to know who the man who had attacked him was. He couldn’t help but think that Black would have to be very stupid to enter Diagon Alley and attack him like he had so close to escaping from Azkaban.

It did make him realise something though. While he had hated the Dursleys he had been much safer there than he would have been if he’d been in the wizarding world before. If it hadn’t been for Black’s horrendous aim and the huge dog now snoring away happily it was quite possible that he would be dead.

Suddenly obeying the Minister’s request seemed like a very good idea. He had no illusions that the last two escapes from Voldemort had been anything but sheer dumb luck and he probably stood about as much chance against a Death Eater as food did against Ron.

At least here, in his room, the only people who knew exactly where he was were Tom, Fudge and Shacklebolt, and two of the people on that list he liked and though he didn’t know Tom well enough to trust him, the Auror had saved Harry’s life once already and as such the almost-teen felt like he could at least trust that he wouldn’t give Harry’s location away to someone who might want to kill him.

He wondered how the man had done that, teleported away like he had as he got changed and slumped onto the bed, putting his wand under his pillow as he had at the Dursleys, before he pulled one of his texts out of the magically expanded bag.

“Hey!” Harry protested as the huge canine clambered up onto the bed as he turned the first page and led across his legs, pinning him to the bed. “Get down.”

The dog gave him a mournful look.

“If you don’t get down I’ll give you an embarrassing name like Fluffy.” Harry scowled at it, figuring that if it was intelligent enough to understand him it was intelligent enough to have a sense of pride.

The dog shifted rather quickly at that, giving him a rather dirty look as it did so.

Harry just chuckled at it, trying to remind himself not to get too attached as someone would probably come forward for the dog before too long and then he’d have to hand it over to its owner. It was probably a good thing, he couldn’t imagine trying to explain to his friends why he was suddenly the proud owner of a huge, overly friendly, dog. Nor could he imagine trying to explain in a letter to Professor McGonagall why he had to bring two pets to school.

Harry fell asleep in the middle of reading a paragraph about how the school had been built using magic, might and sheer force of will against the wishes of the local populace and sleep right through the night, other than for a brief few minutes when Tom knocked on the door, wanting to collect Harry’s plate, and set the dog off.