HARRY POTTER :Dark Kingdom

Harry removed her hand from his arm and frowned at her. "Don't be spiteful."

Natalie's eyes grew wide, and Harry stalked away from her to help Hermione who already struggling with two large tomes. He took the books from her so she could continue her search.

"I'm surprised you didn't stay to talk with Natalie," Hermione remarked. "She's the prettiest girl in class, you know." Harry shrugged.

"Her personality is kind of ugly though," he said, recalling her callous disregard for other's feelings, his and Hermione's both. Hermione smiled a bit at him.

"And I'm so much better?"

"You're nice enough, I think. It's not like you're ugly either. I mean, not that I would care if you were! But you're not, so you shouldn't think that way about yourself! Not that you were, but you know- Er...Nevermind!"

She smiled and rolled her eyes at him. Harry shifted from foot to foot, growing tired for holding the heavy books.

"So who was he talking about when he said 'You-Know-Who'? Because, frankly, I don't know who."

"Oh! Him. I don't suppose they would have mentioned him at WYRA, would they? Well, he's..." Hermione took a look around the class and once determining no one was standing too close to them, she leaned over to talk softly in his ear. "He's the dictator of Wizarding Britain. His name is Voldemort, but everyone calls him 'You-Know-Who'."

"If everyone calls him 'You-Know-Who', then how does anyone know his name?"

"When ever he passes a new law or a issues a personal statements, he always signs with his name and the government documents all use his name. My foster father works in the Court directly under him, so I've seen him a couple times. Everyone calls him Lord Voldemort when they address him personally."

"Wow, so your family knows the ruler of the wizarding world? What's he like?"

Hermione paused in her collection of books, her expression thoughtful.

"He's... amazing, really. Scary, terrifying... but fascinating. You know he's almost sixty and doesn't look a day over twenty-five? Handsome enough, medium height, black hair. His eyes are red, bright red and I've heard they glow when he's angry. I've also heard you can see fangs when he smiles, but I'm not sure I believe it. And he's a parselmouth, so he always seems to be in the company of snakes. His familiar is a giant cobra named Nagini."

Harry shivered at the description she gave, barley able to believe that such a person could possibly exist. He sounded more like the devil in human form than any of the wizards he had seen before.

"What's a parselmouth?" he asked, despite himself.

"It means he can talk to snakes and understand them. It's a really rare talent and only people said to be descended from Salazar Slytherin, the first parselmouth, are said to be able to do it. He's the only person who is capable of it in the world at the moment."

They made their way back to their table, where Natalie was lounging and looking rather peeved. "Did you two have fun? You looked like you were getting awfully cozywith each other."

"We were having a blast. You really should have joined us," Hermione quipped, handing her particularly heavy book. Grimacing under the weight of the book, Natalie, nevertheless opened it and began searching for her family name. Harry accepted a much newer book on wizarding law and began picking through it. For almost an hour they worked together, exchanging books occasionally and pointing out pieces of information relevant to the others. By the time Professor Timbal started collect their papers, Natalie had found a great uncle Thadeus Phelps, who had proposed legalizing blood prostitution for vampires. Hermione had found six Malfoys, all with particularly radical legislative ideas regarding muggles and muggleborns.

Harry had found out that wizards had mingled with muggles before Voldemort's regime, but that had been one of the first things the wizard had outlawed when he came to power a mere ten years ago. It was a piece of information he felt was the key to everything he had seen and experienced up until that moment. It explained why he had been kidnaped, why muggleborns weren't allowed to stay were their families, and why Snape had warned him about the wizarding world being a dangerous place.

Hermione finished her part of the essay within only a few minutes, but kept herself busy by leafing through her book.

"Potter."

Harry turned to Hermione, who had whispered very softly and was pretending she hadn't. She pulled the tome she had been looking through discretely in her lap, glanced at Natalie to make sure she hadn't noticed, and pointed to a section of her book. Scanning the small writing, something about acknowledging the territorial rights of centaurs, he couldn't figure out what she was expecting him to see when his own name appeared suddenly before him. He glanced around, making sure no one else was watching them, and pulled the book into his lap to get a better look.

After the death of his father-in-law, Andreas Maximilian Hartwell, Harold Jeremy Potter, inherited the additional votes necessary to overturn the new clause to the Sentient Magical Creature's Rights and Responsibilities doctrine. He went on to oppose three other similar amendments, maintaining the rights of woodland elves, centaurs, and other sentient creatures to refuse leasing or selling their land to wizarding folk or from paying property taxes to wizarding government. His family carried on his legacy three more generations until the rise of Grindlewald made it necessary for the Ministry of Magic to find additional sources of taxes to pay for increased national defense. Whether the action of the former Ministry of Magic was entirely legal is still debated, but has yet to be overturned...

Harry blinked. He reread the paragraph. He read before the paragraph. He read after it. The name didn't appear a second time, but it didn't disappear either.

There was a Potter on the Wizengamot, or at least had been. A Potter with the same first name as his. Could it possibly be coincidence?

He turned to Hermione, hoping for some sort of explanation, hoping she wouldn't think him crazy for thinking what he was. She leapt far ahead of him from crazy into sheer genius.

"You know, Harry. A lot of wizarding families fled to Europe during the war."

Harry's first summer as a wizard was an introduction in how magic could make even the mundane exciting. Living with the Sleuw's was nothing like living with the Dursley's. For one, they were actually pretty nice. For another, they were odd. Mr. Sleuw, who had not formed a single word in the entire time Harry was in his company, turned out to be something of a gentle, albeit dim, giant. He took all his instructions from Mrs. Sleuw, who while bubbly and energetic, wasn't that bright either. She was always forgetting what they needed to do that day, or where she left their wands, or if it was the right time of year to start planting a particular plant. Yet somehow they filled their days with endless toil, and dragged Harry into it whenever they could.

He didn't mind so much. The work was hard and often dirty, but unlike with the Dursley's, he always had proper tools, food, rest, and instruction to get the task done. And, like McGonagall had said, when he worked hard enough he spared up enough of their time that they would take him down to the lake or into Hogsmeade. He could not say whether or not they felt any fondness for him, but they certainly gave him a level of respect and consideration, which he was grateful for.

Professor Timbal, while a very strict man, was also very knowledgeable and never begrudged a question as long as you waited to be called on. Woe to those who spoke out of term, however. Detentions were spent clapping chalk dust out of erasers for an entire hour

Classes were not as bad as he thought they would be either. There was certainly a lot of material covered and there always seemed to be more they didn't have time to get into, but with Hermione there to patiently fill in the details to matters that confused him, he felt on par with most of the class and scored fairly well on all his quizzes. He paired with Hermione on most days, and while the vast sum of her knowledge and long convoluted lectures were a bit irritating occasionally, she was a good study partner and generally patient with him. Natalie, who tended to group with them once or twice a week was a bit less reliable. Some days she was perfectly sweet tempered and helpful, and other days she was a spoiled brat. On all days she seemed intent on distracting Harry from working with Hermione. Dean Thomas, who grouped with them when a subject particularly baffled him (and thus required Hermione's expertise), would tease Harry for being a 'player'. Harry was more convinced that Hermione simply liked having someone actually listen to her lectures and Natalie just wanted to use him to annoy Hermione.

That they both happened to be the prettiest girls in the class was entirely beside the point.

Perhaps the hardest lesson Harry had to learn was one Hermione could not help him with. Apparently, it was still standard practice to use a quill and ink rather then a pen or pencil. Harry struggled time and again to keep from dripping ink all over the place and smudging his fingers. He wasn't the only one either. Everyone except for Hermione usually had charmed quills that didn't drip and to suddenly be without said charms was proving a bit of a frustration. Gradually, Harry got better at it, but was dismayed how much his handwriting suffered.

As the class became more comfortable together, lunch time grew shorter and play time grew longer. Harry and the other boys enjoyed short games of Ground Quidditch, which was similar to regular Quidditch except there were no brooms, the balls always traveled four feet above the ground, and the bludgers were a lot softer. Harry had a nac for the Seeker position and was often the first picked for a team. When it rained they would break out checkerboards and card sets, some of them already magicked to perform little tricks. Hermione would just roll her eyes at their antics and return to her book, while the other girls stood off to the side cheering them on or gossiping with each other.