Ouroboros (n): A circular figure of a serpent, dragon or worm eating its own tail, a representation of the continuous cycle of life and death.

This is a not-entirely-serious crackfic.

Ouroboros

A Harry Potter and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha crossover

Year Zero

Found

He sips the cup of tea slowly, savoring the flavor - one of the few comforts of home in this faraway and lonely place.

They have the same DNA. Same faces, same hair, same types of physique.

They even respond in the same way to emotion... to logic... to arousal.

But somehow, talking to them, living with them... all of it felt different. Like he was the only one in the cave looking in a different direction, if he applied Plato's allegory to his current situation.

The man sighed forlornly. It had been too long since he felt like an alien in this place.

A knock came to the door, quickly snapping him out of his funk.

"Sir?"

"Come in."

The door opened, with two brunettes walking in.

"Ah, so how were my operational estimates? Did the projected results go according to plan?"

"Yes, sir," one of them reply. "Clyde is doing wonderfully in the task you appointed him."

The other one continues. "Even though it has been barely a week since the engagement, he's not skipping a beat. But... that's not why we're here, sir. We thought you should know this first."

She hands him a folder, which he quickly reads through... and then he lets out a frightened gasp. "An A-Rank linker core activating? Close to where I was... found?" he asked with consternation.

"Yes, sir."

He let out a tense breath. Something like this would raise so many red flags in the organization he is currently working for... but after peering through the report, his curiosity was piqued even further. Odd. The kind of output this has... I'll wager my pauldrons that it's a toddler of around five to six years old.

I think I know who to delegate this to.

"Aria, Lotte... take care of this for me."

"Off the books, Colonel?" the two girls asked in unison.

He nodded.

Judging by the frightened looks on the couple's faces, Aria and Lotte guessed (correctly) that they were the ones responsible for the target's hapless fate.

For one, they had found the source of the A-rank linker core in a place called Little Whinging, not too far from where their master had been found after tending to an injured Enforcer all those years ago.

Based on what they did when they saw the uniforms, the couple and their own toddler-aged son seemed to think this was a visit by the local Social Services department, and they didn't feel the need to correct them.

"Fine, take the freak - er, boy with you! We've hit nothing but bad times ever since he got here."

"Mr. Dursley, if we find out that you have mistreated this boy more than what we've seen, you'll be hearing from us again. With reinforcements."

The couple's faces seemed to go paler and paler with each of Lotte's words.

"Ma'am, we..."

"But that boy is..."

"Excuse me," Aria interrupted the couple, "but we will have him undergo physical and psychological evaluation. Expect a visit from us within the next week."

The woman fainted dead away while her husband didn't seem to know what to do, but it was irrelevant to Lotte, who was already leading the boy by the hand out of the house.

Right outside the house, as soon as Aria put up a more in-depth diagnosis, a torrent of curses escaped the familiar's mouth.

"What's wrong, Aria?"

"Parasitic entity with its own linker core. Low rank, but is about 5% integrated into his magic system... and growing. We need to get the boy back to Mid and that thing out of him ASAP."

"Hold on, Harold," Lotte said as she signaled the ship for transport back, holding onto the child's hand. "Everything will be okay now. We promise."

The boy's eyes brightened for the first time since they went to see the source of the magical anomaly, and the two familiars felt something tug at their heartstrings.

No child should be locked up in a cupboard for something like this.

Reborn

"Doctor, you called?"

"A fascinating sample," the analyst began, "yet flawed. What you have here is a fragment of a human linker core, given sentience but limited independence, almost as if it was bound to its original source."

"Is it any danger to the boy, Dr. Marion?"

"None tangentially," the analyst replied. "The procedure that implanted this parasite into the boy's magic system has also bound the boy, the parasite, and the source of the parasite together. So, based on my findings, this is less a parasitic and more a symbiotic entity. That's not the oddest thing about it, though."

"What is?"

"It's still malleable, meaning we can recode it," Dr. Marion explained. "The stranger thing is, when we mapped out a sample and converted it into readable code, I found out that during the implantation process, several significant pieces of its original source code were lost. If this were an Intelligent Device, it would have no limiter, no self-diagnostic capabilities, and no self-preservative subroutines... that's it!"

"Back to my questions, Doctor. What can we do about the... symbiote?"

Dr. Marion smiled. "Well, that's where the magic ends and the SCIENCE begins. I'll use a custom source code template for Intelligent Devices as a foundation, extract the symbiote, convert it to the Mid-Childa standard, and insert any missing lines of code that will appear after the conversion process."

"Won't that harm the symbiote in any way?"

"Colonel Graham," the doctor said, "you do remember that code-based conversions and the creation of AI's for Intelligent Devices revolve around high-energy procedures, do you not? It's basically reformatting on an atomic level."

"I do now," the colonel said. "How long do you think this will take?"

"Around two to three hours. Inform your subordinates, Colonel."

"I will, Dr. Marion. And thank you."

A nod was the reply given to him as he left the laboratory, the doctor cackling rather ominously while she started working on her newest discovery.

Dr. Marion typed in the query.

"What is your name?"

"I am Lord Voldemort."

She pressed the override key, began the reformatting and source code implantation procedure, and sang a tune all the while.

"This was a triumph," she began as the symbiote's source code was being repaired, "I'm making a note here - huge success."

She typed again.

"Device name and designation."

"Device name and designation: Ouroboros, Intelligent Device. Serial Number: IM-7755A. But you can call me Tom."

"It's hard to overstate my satisfaction," the doctor continued as she uploaded the missing command lines and subroutines needed to complete the Intelligent Device, "Aperture Science - we do what we must because we can."

"For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead."

"I'm sorry, Gil," the official said. "Mid-Childa regulations forbid you from adopting the child, especially when he still has a family."

"A family that had him sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs," Colonel Virgil Graham said, seething, "a family that left him a pale and malnutritioned toddler of four when they should be doing their damn job. Sir, don't take this the wrong way, but the law is an ass."

The Bureau official nodded in sympathy. "As asinine the law may tend to be, it is still the law. However, I think I found a loophole that you can squeeze the boy through - for only nine to ten weeks annually, at most."

The colonel grinned. "School vacation."

"Exactly."

The pudgy man was currently hovering inches above the air as the official had him by the collar and was lifting him without breaking a sweat.

"My subordinates will be checking up on him randomly, irregularly, and most of all, right when your puny little mind least expects it. If they see anything wrong with the boy... ANYTHING at all... the last thing you will see before a violent, fiery, and painful death will BE. MY. FACE," the man said, barely-concealed fury punctuating the last few words before he dropped Vernon Dursley to the ground. "And don't try that two-faced crap with me, because I'll be watching you, Dursley. I'll be watching your every move. When you slip even just a little, I'll be there before you even know it. I'll take your ass down; I'll take your ass down to Chinatown, as they say."

He lifted Dursley up by the collar again. "We clear?"

Vernon coughed. "Crystal."

"Excellent."

As soon as they left the house, Clyde Harlaown was grinning as he walked side-by-side with his superior.

"Colonel, that was a pretty daring move you did."

"Enforcer, think of this as another lesson: you will find that some people won't be swayed with all the logic in the world. Those kinds of people can only be spoken to with the language of power."

"Of course, Colonel."

Childhood

"I've been working full time to try and keep you from accidentally releasing your magic, boss," the Device telepathically told the boy as he continued reading in the library - a physics textbook that specialized in aerodynamics and projectile motion. "Maybe it's time we try and actually use it deliberately for once. Holding onto that much magic power tends to be detrimental to your magic system. I've been venting out some of your power periodically now."

"Oh," the boy replied. "So, we'll start later - same time, same place, Tom?"

"Sounds good."

Harold James "Harry" Potter had gotten the reputation of being a quiet, bookish type all through his years in primary school, but beneath that exterior was quite the active child. If he wasn't tearing through high school-level books on math and physics, he was spending his free time on the football and rugby pitch.

All that math translated into him being the sneakiest and most accurate striker for his age. Even then, there were murmurs about the boy getting into an advanced sports program based on his uncanny ability to get the football to where he wanted nearly at will.

At the park, the sight of a nine-year old boy practicing his penalty kicks was a common sight - what people didn't notice was that it wasn't really a ball he was kicking.

"Ouroboros, to infinity."

The silvery-green magic circle of the Mid-Childa system came to life under him, the Barrier Jacket forming just as quickly.

"Whew," Harry said. "Ten months of school for this."

A smile toward Uncle Gil.

"Wouldn't trade it for the world."

"Dragonflight," the green orb intoned.

And there, in one of the Mid-Childa training facilities for young mages, Harry Potter and his Intelligent Device took their first flight.

It definitely wouldn't be their last.

"Heya, Uncle Vernon. Aunt Petunia... and Dudley," Harry called as he entered the door to the house.

"How was... vacation?" the woman asked, a bit of anxiety leaking into her voice.

"More than fine, Aunt Petunia," Harry answered, all smiles. "Best. Vacation. Ever. Duds! Grab the ball, let's head down to the pitch. I miss football already."

A relieved breath left Petunia Dursley as soon as both boys scampered out the door, her son carrying the football under his arm. Recently, Harry (any time they called him a 'freak', that scary man from a few years back would call or drop by) had been a lot happier, more active in school, and was even helping out Dudley with some of the trickier subjects her son was facing.

Come to think of it, that man came in just in time to make sure she and Vernon wouldn't influence Dudley's thinking, which was somehow a godsend to the Dursleys. Harry was... almost normal.

"Boxing? You're taking up boxing?"

His cousin puffed up his chest proudly before getting into a boxer's stance.

"That's all they'll let me learn so far," Dudley replied, "won't even let me hit the sandbag yet."

"You'll get there," Harry answered with a grin, "and GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!"

The football sailed right and true to where he wanted it to go.

"One of these days, you have got to teach me how to do that," Dudley muttered.

"It's just a little math and physics," Harry said before going to the net and retrieving the football, unaware of his cousin's groan. Why math? I hate math! Long division sucks!

"This power - it was given to you for a reason, Harold."

Somehow Uncle Gil and his two assistants never got to call him Harry. It was always Harold - but at this point, he didn't mind. What he did mind, was when he worked with his Device, the resulting beam of light he had unleashed carved a trail of destruction for quite a long distance.

Ouroboros, do you know this reason?

Nothing you need be... privy to right now, boss.

Keeping secrets from me, now?

Nothing of the sort. Consider it equal parts hindsight and keeping you away from self-fulfilling prophecies, boss. If you must know, your Uncle Gil knows as well - I told him first - and that he agrees with my decision.

When will I be ready to hear this reason, Tom?

Sooner than you think.

"Yes, Uncle Gil."

"I don't know the exact details of it, but I will do my best to prepare you for anything that may come your way. Now summon your Barrier Jacket and we shall begin."

As soon as Harry had been able to actiavte his Device, vacation months turned to weeks of rigorous training under his Uncle Gil and the two cat-eared young women who followed him roughly all the time.

"Your Device has several basic forms: Standby, Active, Sealing, and Shooting. Further upgrading would give you something extra, but let's not go into that right now."

"Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley... I'm home!" Harry said as soon as he entered the house on Little Whinging.

"Harry," Aunt Petunia said, "you have a letter."

Wordlessly, he opened up the odd envelope, and immediately understood.

We'd better go, boss. I'd rather not have them come to us here. Your aunt and uncle are already at their breaking point in trying to pretend you're just an ordinary boy, when in fact you are anything but.

My aunt and uncle are trying their best. Even Dudley.

Yes, and all of it will be wasted when they show themselves here. I will guide you, as I have once done this before.

...Ouroboros, what do you mean by that?

It's going to be a long and annoying story, boss. I'll tell you when we get to the bus.

And that was when our boy received his letter from Hogwarts, where his life would change forever... at least a bit more after finding out... about a different sort of magic.

Year One

Already Gone

"If you're looking for Harry, he already left. Mentioned something about taking a bus and going to some place called Diagon Alley," Vernon Dursley said to a huge man crowding his doorway.

The man nodded, grunted and went on his way, while the Dursleys breathed a sigh of relief at the close call.

Knight Bus

"That'll be two sickles, please."

"Do you take pounds?" Harry asked.

"Er... you got your entrance letter, right?" the conductor asked. When Harry shook his head, the man continued. "Fine, we'll take you to Diagon Alley free of charge. Will take us about half an hour, so make yourself comfortable, mister..."

Whatever you do, do not say that you are Harry Potter, boss.

"...Graham. Harold Graham."

"All right, Mister Graham. Have a seat."

Harold "Graham" took a seat near the back and watched the scenery fly by, all the while carrying on a silent conversation with his Device about preparing for the Wizarding World.

Ouroboros

I'm not lying when I say that I was once a part of you. In a way, I still am, as my full functions as a Device can only activate under your control.

How is it that you know a lot about this world?

Because I came from this world, too. Before I became what I am now, boss. I've done a lot of... really bad things. All in the name of... well, it's meaningless now. My dream has come true.

Which is?

To be immortal.

Harry thought about it and chuckled.

Yes, you are immortal, Tom.

So what about your dream, boss?

Finish school, settle down in Mid, maybe become an Enforcer or something... like Big Brother and Big Sister.

You know what, boss?

What, Ouroboros?

I'll be with you every step of the way.

Thanks.

Diagon Alley

"Ah, a muggleborn first year!" the innkeeper said. "We have the standard first-year package here."

"Thanks, sir!"

"Don't mention it, Harry. Come to think of it, you look a lot like The Boy Who Lived..."

Harry waved it off. "I get that a lot. Besides, my last name's Graham."

The boy laughed his way out of the inn and towards the Alley, checking the list of items required for first-year students in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"I'm afraid I can't give you a wand. You already have a... my word, an actual sentient conduit."

"I don't suppose I could just find any old stick and pretend it's my wand, sir," Harry replied. "Would that work?"

The old wandmaker nodded and went to his pile of rejects before fishing out a wand that looked every bit like the real thing but was nothing more than an oak branch.

"I do believe it just might do the trick. Fare you well, young Masters."

Harry shrugged and thanked old Ollivander before hurrying to the next stop.

"Fifty-galleon stipend for all muggleborn first-years here," the goblin said. "Ah. You must be that Graham boy."

"Yes, sir."

A glint in the goblin's eye threw little Harry a bit off balance. "Do you want to see what's in your vault, sir?"

"Not this time, sir. I think the stipend will be enough for now."

"As you wish."

"Thanks, and may you live long and prosper," Harry said, raising his hand to the old goblin and parting his middle and ring fingers in a passable imitation of the Vulcan salute.

"Likewise, young one."

"I think I like this owl."

"You can have it for half-price, she's pretty ornery most of the time - seems to have taken a liking to ya, kid."

"Thank you, sir."

The white owl was hooting at him and giving him odd looks as he walked down the Alley, and Harry still didn't have a name for her.

Can I wear my Barrier Jacket under these robes, Tom?

No, but I can reinforce them a little. Still doesn't beat a fully-manifested Barrier Jacket, though.

Darn.

Anyway, you're done shopping here. Let's go home and say our goodbyes to your aunt and uncle.

Farewells

"Thanks for keeping up with me all these years," Harry said. "Between school years I'll be with Uncle Gil."

Dudley was crying manly tears at this.

"Hey, I'll be showing up every now and then, Duds. Now... promise me you'll win the under-12 amateur boxing cup, okay?"

"Okay, Harry. I'll win it for ya!"

"That's the spirit! Anyway, Uncle Vernon... Aunt Petunia... thank you. For sticking with me... in spite of everything."

That broke the dam - and for the first time, the Dursleys didn't see a freak, they just saw a boy they found out tried his hardest to be a part of the family, and now he was going away.

The Train

He looked left, and right.

Left, and right again.

As soon as the group of redheads left the platform (after seeing to their sons actually phase through the stone wall), he moved in.

Not bothering to waste time gawking, he quickly made his way to the train and began the hunt for a spot to sit in.

Finding a vacant compartment wasn't that hard, and pretty soon Harry had opened the bag and was enjoying a meal - watching the scenery go by.

"...Hedwig," Harry intoned, and his owl seemed to perk up at the name. "You like it, girl? Okay then, I guess I'll name you Hedwig."

The owl nibbled his outstretched hand in approval.

Sorting

"Graham, Harold!"

The unassuming boy edged toward the chair where the hat went over his head.

Upon making contact, the hat found the boy an anomaly. You have the traits of all four Houses within you, it said. The question now becomes what will you decide upon?

Harry grinned inwardly. I learned more from playing with my friends and reading in the library more than I did in the classroom.

Thus, that takes Ravenclaw out of the picture. You also have cunning and courage in roughly equal amounts.

Yes, but as my Uncle Gil likes to say, too much of the former makes you a schemer and a coward, too much of the latter makes you a foolhardy idiot.

The hat laughed out loudly.

You have the knack for cutting into the heart of the matter, Harry Potter. I like you.

Thanks. So by the process of elimination, I should be in...

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The boy took his place uneventfully among his fellows.

Several hours later...

"Potter, Harry!"

No answer.

"That's funny, I'm sure he's here... oh, wait a second."

Minerva McGonagall checked the list of enrollees and found in a footnote that the Boy Who Lived "answers to the alias 'Harold Graham'".

She gave a small grin as she shrugged and let the Sorting continue. How Slytherin of him. I wonder how Pomona will handle this one?

Resemblance

Severus Snape had a small problem.

It wasn't that the Boy Who Lived was an attention-seeking prat; far from it, in fact. The boy (who went by Graham, a very Slytherin move on his part, thought the Potions professor), while he was an industrious, helpful and slightly OCD Potions student, seemed to stare at him a bit more intently than usual during idle moments.

He only found out why during the Halloween feast.

"Professor Snape, if you don't mind, I'd like you to do me a miniscule favor," Harry said as he walked up to the professors' table.

"I hope this has nothing to do with your grades, as I do not favor any student above another," the professor answered.

"No, sir. Could you please say this out loud?" he asked, handing over a sheet of paper.

It's not a spell. Probably some lines from a play or book, Snape thought. But this sounds nothing like some Muggle literature I've read. It's not that big a deal anyway, and the child doesn't seem to imply malice.

"Very well, Mister Graham," the professor said after awhile, and then he cleared his throat. "'I wanted this to be professional, efficient, adult, cooperative. Not a lot to ask. Alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way... so he won't be joining us for the rest of his life.'"

It need not be said that Harry's eyes were shining brightly as soon as the professor spoke - he took up a formal position and bowed deeply.

"Thank you, Professor."

"You're welcome," a slightly bewildered Snape replied as the boy went back to his table to the cheers of his fellow first-year 'Puffs, some of the Gryffindors for the rather large set of brass balls this first-year Hufflepuff had, and a smattering of Muggleborns throughout because they knew where that Graham kid got those words from.

Troll

Midway through the Halloween feast, Harry felt something was off.

MDL flag on sector 5. A bathroom. Hostile non-human entity detected.

Crap, Harry muttered to himself. "May I be excused?" he asked. "Pumpkin juice went straight to the bladder."

Ignoring his fellow Hufflepuffs whose faces were beginning to turn a contorted green, Harry quickly darted to where the hostile presence was.

Even before he could get there, he heard girlish screams echoing in the halls, and decided to throw discretion out the window. There were lives to be saved.

"Ouroboros, to infinity!" he yelled, and in a flash his Barrier Jacket was up and his Device was in full fighting form. "Bombardment Mode!"

"Acknowledged. Form Change: Bombardment," Ouroboros responded as Harry turned the corner into a hallway bathroom. As he followed the trail of destruction to see a huge green thing beginning to batter down the bathroom stalls, he didn't hesitate. There were no more shrieks to be heard, and bracing for the worst, Harry took aim at the creature's head and fired.

"Phase Bolt," the staff intoned as a silvery-green ball of energy fired outward, catching the thing on the back of its head.

That was when he was noticed, the thing turning around and charging at him swinging - but Harry was ready. As he pointed the business end of Ouroboros towards the charging green monstrosity, the green jewel adorning the top of the serpentine silver staff began to pulse with light.

"Now!" Harry yelled. "Arc Smash!"

"Arc Smash," Ouroboros intoned as a large beam of silver light burst from the Device, crashing into the creature and launching whoever or whatever it was through the bathroom space, right through the walls and into the sky.

Back in the classroom, everyone was in awe at the impromptu fireworks display.

Thankfully, the girl in the bathroom - Granger something-or-other was her name - appeared to have passed out from fear of the rampaging thing.

Learn To Fly

"You must have a knack for flying, young man," Madam Hooch said as she saw the young Graham kid wordlessly pick up the Cleansweep.

"It's always been a dream of mine to fly, Ma'am," the boy politely explained before getting onto the broom as per Madam Hooch's instructions and willing the old broom to a few spins around the sky.

Danger, he heard Ouroboros whisper to him, and he veered sharply in the air to avoid a strange glass ball flying upward. With a smooth movement, he caught the strange artifact and made his way back to the ground.

"That was awesome," whispered Hannah, one of Harry's fellow 'Puffs.

It didn't take long before Harry was called by his head of House Pomona Sprout and introduced to Cedric Diggory as a possible reserve Seeker.

Christmas

Deep under the covers of his ridiculously comfortable and ridiculously antique four-poster, Harry Potter (going by the alias "Harold Graham" in Hogwarts) pretended to sleep, his Device active and his Barrier Jacket deployed, ready to spring into action at any moment the strange presence in his dorm room made any suspicious moves.

But there was none, and when Harry peeked out from under the blankets, he saw a very odd cloak.

Looking left and right to see that no one would notice, he snatched it and quickly stashed it in his belongings, where it was quickly and promptly forgotten.

Battle

He had been tagged with a detention unjustly, but he didn't mind it.

It was during the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch game right after the game ended - one of the Lions' brooms began to spiral out of control. Flouting the school rules, he grabbed the broom of an older Slytherin, took to the sky, and barely snatched the hapless young man from what would be a gruesome fall.

And when trouble happens, it happens in bunches.

Ouroboros had alerted him as soon as he stepped into the forest - a life was in danger, and he had to go and do something.

"To infinity," Harry whispered as soon as he was out of eyeshot, and with a small flash, he was ready for battle.

The Multi-Dimensional Lock had brought him to where a cloaked and hooded man was about to plunge a dagger into what looked like a horse...

...and with a wordless Phase Bolt, the weapon was knocked out of the perpetrator's hands.

The shadowed presence turned to face him, his face obscured by the cloak, and then hissed. "Harry... Potter..." the slithering voice began.

"My primary school teacher called me Mr. Potter. My friends call me Harry, and you're neither, shithead," Harry quoted, the bravado of that guy from the movies entering his voice despite him being scared out of his wits right now.

"How foolishly brave," the man replied, "you should have been in Gryffindor, like your equally-foolish parents..."

Harry's eyes narrowed, but he would not give the man a chance to see him angry. Besides, his best shot required the man to get in close. Unfortunately, the shadowed man took this opportunity to cast a host of spells at the boy.

"MOVE!" Ouroboros yelled, and Harry took immediate evasive action, going to the side with a simple Flash Move, and readying another Phase Bolt.

I'm not going to last long enough to cast an Arc Smash in his face, Harry told his Device as he continued dodging spell fire.

Use Action Mode.

Harry grinned as he backpedaled from a spell that would have blown him up had he been too close.

Another dive away from a cutting spell, and Harry had his Device change form into something meaner than a serpentine staff.

Now was his chance to take the guy out before he could get at the downed animal, so Harry took the gambit and charged in, Device at the ready.

Another one of those explosive spells sailed into him, and the shadowy man hissed his triumph... only for it to sail through the boy.

Click.

One burst of fire from his Device at near point-blank range launched Harry's opponent an impressive distance away, the cone-shaped spray of smaller Phase Bolts most appropriate for the shape his Device now took - a shotgun pistol.

"Now I have a shotgun," Harry said. "Ho-ho-ho." He then quickly made his way to the downed horse, only for it to slowly make its way back up and give him a nod of thanks with its horned head before bounding further into the forest.

As a gob-smacked Harry gazed at the retreating unicorn, Hagrid the gamekeeper strode up to him with a frightened Draco Malfoy quickly following behind.

"What's the big deal with you running off again?" he asked. "If I wasn't so nice to you I'd double or triple your detentions!"

"There was a... unicorn," Harry explained. "Someone was attacking it."

"What is this?" Draco's voice asked in consternation some distance away, and as Harry and the gamekeeper went to see, they gasped.

Their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor - Quirinus Quirell - was lying dead on the forest floor, looking like a bad case of half-done spontaneous human combustion. Nearly his whole midsection appeared to have been burned or blasted off, and Malfoy barely held onto his lunch (or dinner, as the case may be) at the sight.

It was a somber trio that returned to the castle grounds in a short while, the gamekeeper leading both boys to where they could easily return to their dormitories before reporting the death to the Headmaster and the other faculty members.

Homeward

The rest of the school year was uneventful for Harry, as his school days were spent studying with classmates, Seeker training under the Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, and putting together an informal game of football with fellow Muggleborns whenever he could.

All in all, it was a rather boring first year for Harry, who, thanks to his Uncle Gil insisting on excellence in all fields, barely lost to a certain Hermione Granger for best marks of their year level.

As he received the award (and 50 points to Hufflepuff for the distinction), realization dawned onto him - this was the girl he had saved back in Halloween.

Shrugging his shoulders after the ceremony, Harry smiled at the thought of continuing his education here in a few months; he also grinned at the thought of spending some time with his Uncle Gil, big brother Clyde, big sister Lindy, and Uncle Gil's two familiars.

So it was with a smile so wide that Harold "Harry" Graham waved goodbye to his classmates at the train station, looking for and finding his Uncle Gil's two familiars waiting for him.

"Big sis Aria! Big sis Lotte!" he shouted, waving at them.

"Harry! So how was magic school?" they asked, embracing him as soon as they could.

"Long story," Harry answered. "Can I spend the weekend at my aunt and uncle's before going with you guys back to Mid?"

"Of course, Harry," they said. "Come on, your Uncle Gil's waiting in the car."

Note: It's highly plausible that Harry got to watch a certain action film due to the Dursleys renting and/or purchasing said action film via VHS.