Sensors, Witches, and Wizards

Story summary. What changes in the story would have happened if Harry's aunt instead of not having any magic was actually what they called in the wizarding world a sensor? A person who unlike a witch or wizard couldn't perform "high level" magic, but instead could sense and recognize any kind of magic in a wide area? What if she was sent to Hogwarts with her sister to learn how to be a sensor? And what if when Voldemort attacked her family she took in Harry and began teaching him magic? This story explores just what could have happened had this been the case.

Author's Notes: One quick head's up. Harry knows some "small level magic" before ever going to Hogwarts. These are like first year spell only don't need a wand to perform not as powerful.

Chapter one: New Beginnings

The street of Privet Dr. was illuminated by a number of street lamps. A man dressed in flowing purple robes with half moon spectacles and a long silver beard stepped into one of the circles of light and held up what looked like a lighter. Clicking it, the light he was standing in instantly flew into the strange device. Clicking it eleven more times, all of the lights left the lamps and entered the device. In one of the houses, a woman gave a small start as she woke up feeling a magical object being used close by. Sitting up in bed next to her husband, she concentrated and realized that she had felt this kind of device being used before. Getting up, she got dressed and headed down to the living room in her house and waited knowing that the owner would be at her doorstep soon.

Meanwhile outside, The man in robes was walking down the street to the house where he knew the lady was now awake and waiting for him. Coming to number 4, he noticed a cat already sitting in front of the gate. Smiling down at it the man said "Good evening Professor McGonagall." The cat then shifted to form into an older lady who also wore robes, these ones green and nodded her head to the man who spoke. "Good evening headmaster Dumbledore. Are the rumors true?" She asked with a small bit of sadness and hope in her voice.

The now named Dumbledore sighed slightly before saying "I'm afraid so. The poor boy was the only one to survive. We still aren't sure how though."

At that moment the two heard what sounded like a motorcycle, looking around, they noticed a light in the sky coming towards them and getting lower with each moment. When it reached the street, it landed and came along side the two to reveal it was indeed a motorcycle with a rather large man riding while wearing a long brown coat. Turning the engine off, the newcomer said to the two "Evening professor, headmaster."

"Evening Hagrid. I take it everything went all right?" Dumbledore asked to which Hagrid nodded. "Yes sir. Little tyke fell asleep as we passed over Bristol." He then showed the two a one year old baby that was wrapped in a blanket.

Taking the baby, Dumbledore walked up to the door with the other two following behind. Reaching the door, he sent a small pulse of magic out to alert the occupant inside the house.

Inside, the woman stood up and headed to the front door. Opening it, she saw two school staff members that she had not seen in a while and one of the most unusual people she had ever met. She instantly noticed the bundle in her former teacher's arms and frowned. Looking up she said "I'm not going to like what you're here for am I?"

Dumbledore nodded silently and said "I am afraid so Petunia. May we come in?"

Petunia nodded and stepped aside and allowed the others to come in and led them to the kitchen. Using one of the few spells she could perform, she pointed at a chair and enlarged it for her larger than normal visitor who nodded a thanks and sat down in it while the other two sat down in their own chairs. Heading to the cabinets, Petunia pulled out some tea packages and used another small house spell she could do to make some tea without using a kettle so that she would not wake the other members of the household. Once the tea was ready, she poured it into three cups and a mug and brought them over to the table. Once they were all seated, Dumbledore thanked her for the tea and began to explain what had happened earlier that night.

Petunia was shocked to learn that her sister Lily and her husband James had been murdered that night. She silently cried as she listened and McGonagall did her best to comfort the distraught sensor. Dumbledore then explained how Lily had asked him that if anything happened that he was to bring her son to Petunia to live until it was time for him to come to Hogwarts.

At this Petunia became confused. "Sir, while I will gladly take him in, Wouldn't Harry be better off with Sirius? I mean I'm not really the best option of raising someone who obviously has such strong magic in him."

Dumbledore shook his head and explained that while Voldemort was killed, his followers still remained and would most likely try to find Harry and kill him in revenge. He also explained that Sirius was currently AWOL and that it was not a well known fact that one of the best sensors in Britain was related to the Potters so no one would think to look here for him. Petunia nodded realizing that the old man was correct on that one.

Afterwards, they talked about what to do with Harry and came to the conclusion that it would be best for him to learn small level magic (Magic that usually happens by accident but can sometimes be learned.) once he had his first "accident". It was also agreed that when he turned eleven that he would be sent to Hogwarts for proper wizard training. Once they ironed out all of the details, the three magic users thanked Petunia for her time and the tea and left. Just before teleporting out of the area, Dumbledore released the light from his device and then apparated out of the area.

Ten Years Later

Harry was in bed dreaming. It wasn't a very pleasant one either. Oh sure, it started out all right, but he knew that wouldn't last very long. In the dream, he was looking around a house while a couple played with their one year old son. It went on for about an hour like this until the scene turned into one of the same house being viewed from the outside while a green flash erupted from the first floor followed closely by two more flashes. After which the house explodes. The first flash occurred but right before the next flash would come, he heard someone say his name. The dream mercifully ended.

In the world of the waking, Petunia was standing at her nephew's door about to wake him when she noticed the look on his face.

'That dream again. I don't get it, why does he keep dreaming about that night? I can understand the fact that it would seriously traumatize him if had remembered it, but until that dream started he never knew exactly how his parents died. I wish we could figure out a way to keep him from having it, this is the fifth time this year.'

Deciding to spare her nephew as much as she could, she quickly walked over to the bed's occupant and said softly "Harry" while lightly shaking him. Her nephew, already used to waking up so early, easily woke up to see her aunt looking down at him.

"I had that dream again." Harry said while grabbing his glasses from the bedside.

"I could tell." Petunia said with a slight frown. "I'm just glad you can handle it better now than the first few times you've had it."

Harry nodded. The dream had started showing up every once in a while when he turned five. It had really shaken him up when he first saw it and Petunia, and by extension Dumbledore, were worried when he told them about it. Dumbledore had cast a few charms to help him keep the dream from popping up as often as it did before, but that didn't mean it wouldn't rear it's ugly head a few times. It had been getting worse last year, even when Dumbledore had redid the charms. Fortunately, Harry was handling it a lot better than he was even a few years ago.

Shaking her head slightly to take her mind off those thoughts, she looked down and said "Time to get up Harry."

Harry nodded and grabbed a change of clothes before heading to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Petunia headed downstairs and got everything needed to make breakfast out and started cooking bacon. Five minutes later, Harry came down and started to set the table by using a small level levitation spell to bring four glasses to the table. While he was performing the spell, he opened the refrigerator door, gestured to the orange juice which left the carton it was in and went into the four glasses that were now set on the table. He then gestured at the butter tray and sent it to the table as well. He then gestured at a drawer and it opened, sending out four forks and knives which quickly went to their proper places on the table. Another gesture, and the drawer closed, while Harry then gestured towards the pantry and the marmalade came floating to the head of the table as well. That finished, Harry went next to his aunt and started cooking the eggs the old fashioned way, taking out a bowl, cracking the eggs on the rim and stirring the eggs by hand. While he knew some low level spells that could speed up the cooking time and make it hands free, He and his aunt usually cooked by hand since his aunt called cooking "an art." Once he was done stirring up the eggs, he took out a frying pan and set the eggs in it to cook, occasionally stirring when needed. While this was going on Petunia made four pieces of toast while waiting for the bacon to cook. Once both groups of food were done, she took both plates of food to the table and set them down. A few moments later Harry finished cooking the eggs and set them on the table as well. He then turned and gestured to a cabinet and summoned four plates with a small gesture and sent each one to it's own place.

Petunia went to the staircase and called out "Breakfast!" before coming back into the kitchen where she and her nephew sat down and put a piece of toast on their plate along with some bacon and eggs. It wasn't too long before the two could hear two sets of footsteps coming down, one a bit faster than the other. Harry's cousin, Dudley, practically ran into the kitchen and started devouring the food there. His uncle, Vernon, came at a much slower pace and sat down and started eating in a more dignified pace. Shaking his head at his cousin's antics, Harry once again mused at the fact that if his aunt wasn't around to keep Dudley from eating everything in site, he would probably be fatter than a pig. As it were, the kid was still a little chubby. Sighing, Harry formed the gesture used for most of his low level spells, (The universal English hand sign for two, only with pointer and middle finger together instead of split) and pointed it at the marmalade jar before gesturing to himself. The jar shot straight to his now open hand with a small smack sound before he opened it and put some on his toast. His uncle immediately got a weird look on his face when he saw this but then went back to eating. Dudley had also looked up from eating (Gasp! The world's ending! LOL sorry.) with a strange look as well but went straight back to eating. Aunt and nephew noticed the looks and rolled their eyes. Those two had always been a little edgy around the fact that Harry, and to a very small extent Petunia, could use magic. Vernon hadn't been too happy to know that he was taking in his nephew when he heard the morning after the visit. In his opinion, magic had no place in the "modern" world, but he had tolerated Petunia's "passive abilities" and unfortunately Petunia had been rather adamant about keeping Harry safe so that no extreme "accidents" would happen without her being there for damage control. Vernon didn't like it, but he reluctantly agreed to let him stay.

Harry was extremely grateful that his aunt had kept him. He didn't know what he would have done without her guidance after his accidents started happening. She and a few of the teachers from Hogwarts had worked with him to get his abilities under control. Now the only time he would have an accident was if he started getting really angry or felt any other strong negative emotions. One thing that in his opinion that was really cool was the little fact that as a sensor, his aunt was able to create a mental link with each other. This really came in handy since they had actually used it to teach Harry while he was asleep. Right now through this link, the two felt each others mental sighs when they saw the looks but didn't comment on them. Instead, Petunia started thinking about whether or not they should pack anything for the trip to the zoo that they were taking since it was Dudley's birthday. Harry himself was looking forward to the snake house since sometimes the snakes would talk to him. He had been very surprised the first time it had happened, and also a little scared when Dumbledore had explained to him that some of Voldemort's powers most likely got transferred that night ten years ago, but once he got over it, he found it was actually pretty cool. Though he did keep the fact that he could talk to snakes from his uncle and cousin since it would just be one more thing that "didn't belong in the modern world."

Before they left, Vernon and Petunia showed Dudley the gifts they bought him and he started to throw a tantrum about how there were only twelve presents instead of fifteen like last year. The key word is started since Harry, knowing what was coming, quickly used a small level silencing spell that worked for about ten seconds. Petunia sighed when he did this but was actually grateful since she had tried to keep Dudley from becoming spoiled although her husband didn't seem to care as much. Honestly, sometimes she thought that if he and she died the next day, Dudley would get everything and Harry would be sent off to an orphanage. After that interesting event, they left the house and headed out to the zoo.

London Zoo

The trip to the zoo was fairly uneventful. They were walking around looking at all the animals and taking their sweet time. It was only when they got to the reptile house that things got real weird.

"Hey look! They got some new animals!" some random kid said to their parents as the Dursleys followed the family in. Harry took a quick look around and spotted what the kid had seen, a big kimono dragon and a boa constrictor.

'Wonder what their stories are' Harry thought to himself as he started walking along the exhibits. Every snake that he passed would look up and give him a small nod. Harry returned them and kept going. If Dudley wasn't hanging around so close, he would have stayed to talk to a couple but the snakes understood how he wanted to keep his ability a secret and so settled for nodding a little.

Walking around, they eventually reached the boa constrictor's cage. Harry and surprisingly Dudley took an interest in the snake. Harry decided to talk to it to get to know it and so waited for Dudley to lose interest in it which didn't take too long.

Making sure his cousin had truly moved on, Harry knelt down so that way his head wasn't as high as before and looked at the snake. To anyone besides his aunt, it would have looked like he was just getting a closer look at the big snake. And that was partially correct, but he was also getting closer to make it easier to communicate.

"Hey, my name's Harry. Been here long?" Harry asked moving his lips as little as possible while watching for the snake's response.

The snake opened one of its eyes and looked at the kid who was actually talking to him as if he could understand him. He decided to play along just for the heck of it, "Just transferred about a month ago." To his surprise, the kid actually nodded.

"I see. Must have been weird when they moved you." The kid said. He just nodded. "A little." Another nod. "So where are you from originally?"

The snake looked at the sign placed on the wall of his exhibit as if seeing it for the first time and taking the time to read it. Looking back to the kid, he said "A place like this. I think they called it the New York Zoo. I know it had to be a long way away since the trip was extremely long, though I did sleep most of the way."

Harry nodded again and said "New York is a long way away." He then looked at the sign himself and saw that the boa had been bred in captivity. 'Never seen the forest then. Wonder if he knows about it?'

Before Harry could ask however, he heard "Mom! Dad! Come quick! You won't believe what the snake is doing!" Suddenly, Harry was pushed backwards by his cousin who got right up against the glass with his hands on it. From the floor, Harry got an annoyed look and without realizing it, reached inward to his magic and activated a spell. For one brief moment, the glass took on a vapor quality and Dudley who was leaning against it, fell right into the pool of the exhibit. The snake saw this and quickly uncoiled itself and came out of the exhibit just before the glass re-solidified. Looking to Harry, the boa nodded to him and said "Thanks." to which Harry just replied "Your welcome." before watching the snake head towards the exit, scaring everyone it came close to on the way out. Harry chuckled as he heard "Brazil here I come!"

Petunia, having sensed the unconscious use of magic, was heading back to the exhibit with her husband behind her when they saw what happened. To Petunia, it was one of the more unusual "accidents" that happened over the years. It was quite funny to Harry to see Dudley banging on the glass trying to get out.