Chapter Text
March 24th, 2005, Little Whinging, Surrey, UK
Eliot Spencer hated Little Whinging. Possibly the most boring suburb he had ever had the displeasure of working in. (He was on security detail for a safehouse. Because there was no way anyone would suspect that there was something going on in the only house in five blocks with boarded up windows and no car in the drive 95% of the time. Idiots.) The people were either rude and indifferent, or rude and nosy, or somehow rude, nosy, and indifferent. So when he came upon a large man, red with anger, laying into a boy who couldn't be older than 7 or 8, he went perhaps a bit crazy.
It took a few seconds to leave the man crumpled on the ground, nose and probably several ribs broken. A quick examination of the boy (who had passed out) showed heavy bruises already forming, on top of older bruises and some old scars. The kid was also rake thin. Eliot reevaluated his estimation of the boy's age. He had seen malnutrition before. A look around caught curtains twitching as a neighbor tried to be subtle about spying on the scene.
That, more than anything else, made his decision for him. The abuse was obvious, and the people around did nothing. He tossed the boy over his shoulder and headed out. He had parked a few blocks away, and he doubted anyone would stop him.
Eliot was halfway to Jenny's office—ahh, yes, that Jenny, the attractive doctor he’d met a few years before—when the kid began to stir.
"Calm down kid, I'm not going to hurt you," Eliot said before the kid could work himself into a panic. "I'm taking you to a doctor to get checked over. What's your name?"
"Harry, sir." The kid swallowed. "Harry Potter."
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July 15th, 2007, undisclosed location, USA
"Can I have another pancake, Eliot?"
"Sure, Harry," Eliot mumbled, inspecting the strange envelope that had been in the mail. This, right here, was the reason he'd spent considerable time and effort training Harry not to get the mail. You never knew what was in it.
The envelope was parchment, not paper, easily thick enough to conceal wiring, and the wax seal might be hiding a trigger. He hefted it. Too light to contain explosives, he decided. Probably a caustic agent, or a biological weapon or something. Probably not a disease; their current safe house was in a city neighborhood, and the disease could spread uncontrollably. Eliot wouldn't use anything contagious or easily spread in this neighborhood. And whoever had sent this was good enough to track him down and know he had a son, so it wasn't anyone stupid.
He looked up to see that Harry had made himself another pancake and was sliding it onto his plate.
"I'm going to open this downstairs, Harry," Eliot said, and turned to leave. He knew Harry wouldn't follow him. Harry wasn't allowed in the basement without explicit permission, which he rarely got. Kid didn't need to know what was down there.
Eliot placed the envelope on the table in the most fireproof section of the basement (he'd spent three days stacking cinder blocks to subdivide the unfinished basement into small rooms, and a fourth day lining this one with cement and running vents to the outside) and put on a gas mask, a pair of welder's gloves, and a heavy-duty disposable lab coat. He carefully slit the envelope open, avoiding the wax seal.
There was no explosion, no breaking glass, not even any wires that he could see. Just a couple of sheets of parchment.
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" he read aloud. "What the hell is this???"
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Eliot pulled the letter out again that evening. He hadn't shown it to Harry yet. He thought he'd heard the name "Hogwarts" before, though.
Eliot took a pull of his beer, thinking. He'd definitely heard the name. A man who’d been drunk at the time, celebrating a successful acquisition. Leroy...Goyle? Leroy was an enforcer, surprisingly successful for basic muscle. He was in New Orleans, last Eliot had heard.
Well, New Orleans was not too far away, and he was between jobs. It would do Harry some good to get some culture in him. Plus, New Orleans was great for learning situational awareness and trailing. Lots of color and distractions to make it harder than most cities. And Susan had moved down there a few years ago hadn't she? Ahh, yes, that Susan. It would be nice to catch up.
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The seedy bar was sparsely populated, but, lo and behold, there was Leroy, having a drink with half a dozen similarly large and dimwitted thugs. Other local enforcement, presumably. Eliot shook out his arms as he walked in. History dictated that some persuasion would be needed to get answers.
Twenty minutes later, Eliot left the bar, thinking. The information Leroy had divulged had been...interesting. Eliot probably would not have believed it had he not seen the man make a few coins float with a stick. Leroy had then tried to hit him with some sort of red blast which, while easily dodged, had blown a two inch hole in the wood paneling of the bar.
Eliot did a quick circuit around the hotel he and Harry were staying at. He spotted half a dozen owls on the ledge outside their suite, each with a thick envelope tied to its leg. Whoever this McGonagall was, she certainly was persistent. Another owl had been waiting at the airport when they landed in New Orleans. Two more letters showed up that evening at the hotel, delivered to the front desk. In the time it had taken Eliot to track down Leroy (a few hours of legwork and a handful of busted heads), a full dozen letters had arrived for Harry.
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September 2nd, 2007, King’s Cross Station, London, UK
Eliot watched Harry board the train. It was harder than he expected. Usually he was the one leaving Harry, traveling for a day or two on a job. Harry would be safe at home, with packed meals, careful instructions, six ways to leave the house and three safe houses within walking distance, and the phone numbers for the police, the fire department, the doctor, and Gil the Fixer programmed into his phone.
But now Harry was the one going off into the unknown. He still had his phone, of course, carefully disguised and shielded from magic with the charm Leroy Goyle had (unwillingly) demonstrated. He had signal flares, and MREs, and an extensive first aid kit, and UV ink for writing his real letters to Eliot (they'd practiced writing a safe letter on one side of a parchment and putting any sensitive information on the reverse), and several potions and books of varying levels of legality that they'd found in the magical quarter of New Orleans. He was as prepared as Eliot could make him.
It still didn't seem like enough.
Eliot sighed and adjusted the pendant he wore on a chain under his shirt. Another tip from Leroy, this one a group of runes that could be "charged" to allow a muggle to get through the anti-muggle magic used by the wizarding world. Eliot and Harry had made them out of polymer clay, and Harry had exploded the first three before figuring out how to charge them properly. Eliot wore one against his skin to be in wizarding spaces. The number of uninteresting places that turned out to be wizard homes and stores was remarkable. No wonder Leroy was successful.
(Eliot had always wondered about that, as Leroy was definitely a third-rate fighter. As it turned out, he was a lousy wizard as well as a lousy muggle, and the combination had its uses.)
The train was beginning to fill up, so Eliot strode forward, using the commotion of a noisy group of redheads to cover his boarding. He found a secure spot at the back of the train and settled in. It might be a long ride, but he wasn't letting Harry go anywhere without knowing how to find him again.