Harry Potter and the First Division

PART I - NOVICE

Chapter 3

Gifts and Consequences

The waiting area outside Father Gerard's office was paneled in wood, too. It was a smallish room, about the size of the sitting room at home, with a few large bookshelves, a desk, and a little seating area with a sofa and two chairs. Harry wasn't sure if he was supposed to sit on the chairs, so he just waited outside the office door.

As he stood there, looking around, the lady at the desk looked up at him. "Sent out to wait while the adults talk, then?" she asked sympathetically. Harry nodded.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, belatedly remembering he was supposed to answer when he was asked a question.

"Well don't just stand there, then," the lady said. "Take a seat. I'm Sister Rebecca," she added, smiling kindly.

Harry shook his head, hard, as he walked over to the sofa. This was getting weird – he couldn't remember ever being smiled at this much, especially by adults. He was beginning to think he'd wake up in his cupboard soon, but the lady – no, Sister Rebecca – was talking again.

"It's Harry, right? Do you know about Jesus, Harry?" she asked as she rose from behind the desk and walked across the carpet, over to a smaller bookshelf Harry hadn't seen at first. She gave him yet another quick smile and crouched down to examine the book spines.

A little voice in Harry's head was whispering to him that Aunt 'Tunia wouldn't be caught dead in any sort of crouch – she would claim to anyone who might be listening that it wasn't ladylike – but this lady certainly seemed to be able to crouch like one. Then his ears caught up with his brain, and he shook his head as he registered her question. "What's Jesus?" he asked, feeling slightly like he should already know about at least some of the things people were talking about.

Sister Rebecca smiled at him reassuringly, as though she knew what he was thinking, and delicately plucked a slim book off the shelf, glancing quickly at the cover. Then she stood and came over to where Harry sat on the sofa and settled herself next to him.

"Would you like me to read you this book, Harry?" She held it out, showing him the cover and letting him sound out the title.

"The S-stor-y of Jesus," he read aloud, stumbling a bit. "Yes, please."

"Harry? Come in here, please."

Harry was sitting on the sofa, staring intently at the pages of The Story of Jesus when Aunt 'Tunia poked her head out of Father Gerard's office to call him in. Unused to hearing her call him by name, and never in that voice – she actually sounded nice – he startled so badly the book slid off his lap and hit the floor with a small thump. Blushing, he stuttered an apology to Sister Rebecca for dropping her book, glancing worriedly at Aunt 'Tunia.

"That's alright, Harry, I'll put it away. Go on with your Aunt," Sister Rebecca said, rising to collect the fallen book. Harry stood uncertainly, wondering what was going to happen to him now. He could tell that this was very different than anything that had ever happened with his aunt and uncle, and he didn't know if that was good or bad.

"Come on, Harry," Aunt 'Tunia said, extending a hand to him. "Father Gerard wants to tell you about your gift."

Almost alarmed, Harry stared at the hand. Aunt 'Tunia never touched him, unless she absolutely had to. He was beginning to get really worried. "Are you alright, Aunt 'Tunia?" he asked, hesitantly, as he slowly took her hand.

"Oh, Harry. I think I'm better now than I've been in years."

Harry didn't know quite what to make of this statement, so he just followed the woman – still smiling – back into the office. Uncle Vern and Father Gerard were still there, in the same chairs, and as Aunt 'Tunia returned to her seat, she gave him a gentle little push to the sofa he woke up on. Looking around slowly, as if expecting to see some huge difference, he went to the sofa and sat down.

"Hello again, Harry," Father Gerard greeted him. "Did Sister Rebecca find a book you liked?"

Distracted from his inspection of the office, Harry nodded happily. "Yes, sir," he said. "She read me a book about Jesus." He hesitated briefly, glancing at Uncle Vern. "Is Jesus real, sir? Or is he make-believe?"

"Oh, Jesus is very real, son," Father Gerard confirmed seriously. "And, as a matter of fact, he has a part in the story I'd like to tell you." A movement at the corner of Harry's eye made him glance at Aunt 'Tunia and Uncle Vern in time to see surprise cross both of their faces briefly. He didn't know what that meant, but he shrugged a little and turned his attention back to Father Gerard as he started speaking.

"Now, Harry," the man began, leaning forward in his seat and capturing the boy's eyes with his own. "I'm going to tell you the story as I know it. It's something we're taught when we become priests – that's what my job is called – so that we can help children like you, who have this gift and don't know what it is. I don't have all the information, but if you'll bear with me, I know someone who can help you more than I can later on. Is that okay?"

Harry nodded – that sounded reasonable to him – and the Father settled back into his chair, crossing ankle over knee, and began to speak, his voice taking on a story-telling tone.

"A long, long time ago, after God made the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, they messed up – they made a mistake, and didn't follow God's rules, and God punished them, just like parents do when their children break the rules. Before, Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden that had everything they needed to eat and be healthy. Afterwards, they had to live in the world outside the garden, which meant they had to work to grow and catch and raise all their own food, and build their own shelter, and protect themselves from animals that would hurt them.

"That kind of life is very hard, so God wanted to give them a gift, to add some joy to their lives and to make it a little bit easier for them. So God put some of His power into the world – just a tiny bit – and made it so that some people would be born with the ability to use that power to do things, like helping crops grow and healing the sick and injured, and even things like making a storm in one's back garden.

"But just like children disobey their parents when they're young, there have always been people that disobey God's commands and break His rules. As people learned to use the power He put in the world, they became arrogant. They thought that since they could use God's power, that must mean they were gods. The people that could use His power began to pick on the people that couldn't, and said that the ones that couldn't had to obey the ones that could, because they were gods. They fought with each other over who was the more powerful god, and just generally made life terribly unpleasant for lots of people.

"Finally, God decided that people shouldn't be allowed to use His power anymore, so He told his people – the Jews – that His power was off limits, and that anyone using it was to be put to death, because man couldn't handle the power without becoming dangerous. People were still born with the ability to use it, but it wasn't allowed.

"For a long time, that's how it was. God's power – what we came to know as magic – wasn't allowed, under any circumstances. Then Jesus came along. He was God's very own Son, and he came to Earth to help people be able to enter Heaven, and be with God. He had twelve apostles, or trusted students, who travelled with him, and they went all around, telling people about God and how to get to Him.

"Now Jesus, being God's Son, has the same power that God has, and he gave a little bit to His apostles, so they could heal the sick and drive out demons in His name. Up until this point, the ability to use magic – God's power that He put in the world – only passed down in families. If one or both of your parents couldn't do it, you couldn't either. When Jesus gave His power to His apostles, He effectively made it so that every now and then, a child would be born that could use magic, even though his or her parents couldn't.

"As far as the world was concerned, though, God's rule still stood – magic was off-limits. That all changed at the Pentecost. After Jesus died on the cross, the apostles were together, celebrating the day of Pentecost, which is a special day for the Jewish people as well, and the Holy Spirit came and made it so that all the people – some three thousand, from all over the region – could understand what the apostles were saying, even though they spoke many different languages.

"Ever since then, magic has been allowed, as long as the people that use it follow God's will." Father Gerard paused then, looking at Uncle Vern and Aunt 'Tunia. "You might be interested to know," he added. "That there have been reports for a long time of the faithful, particularly Pentecostals, suddenly becoming somewhat magical. The speaking in tongues and healing are actually real, and the ability sticks around somewhat. They've even been known to actually cure terminal forms of cancer, which is something the secular side of the magical world has never really managed, to my knowledge."

Leaving them to digest this bit of information, he turned back to Harry, who had been putting everything together quietly while Father Gerard talked to his relatives. "Harry?" he asked. "Do you have any questions?"

Hesitating, Harry glanced at Aunt 'Tunia, expecting to see her scowling at him again. She didn't like it so much when he asked questions. To his surprise, Aunt 'Tunia gave him a small smile and a nod, so he turned back to Father Gerard. "I do have one," he admitted uncertainly. Father Gerard just looked at him expectantly. "Am…am I magical, then?"

Flinchingly, Harry waited for the explosion from Uncle Vern, or for Father Gerard to tell him that no, that wasn't why he told the story, he was mistaken. He was very surprised, therefore, when it was Aunt 'Tunia that spoke quietly.

"Yes, you are."

A/N: Sorry about the terribly long wait, y'all. I really promise I haven't given up on this story! I just got pregnant and had a baby since I first posted this, so things have been rather hectic for the better part of the last two years.

And now you have the basis for how magic and Christianity are going to mesh in this story. I've read Harry Potter stories before in which religion was a factor - either a central thematic element, or a peripheral bauble, or somewhere in between - but what I've never read is how we go from the traditional viewpoint of "magic is bad" to "oh, but we're just going to gloss over the fact that we have all these young wizards and witches who apparently don't have any problems reconciling their magic with their membership in the Catholic church." How do they reconcile it? Do you really mean to tell me that there have never been any parents who went straight to their parish priest, their local pastor, or the head of whichever ecclesiastical organization they preferred, just as soon as Professor McGonagall left?

I don't buy it. So, I decided that for a story which centers entirely around the idea of Harry being raised Christian, I needed to have a little more flesh to the concept, and this is the most reasonable explanation I could come up with.

Anyway, I'm hoping, after such a long break from writing, that this still flows well from the second chapter to this one. I've got the outline for Part I finished - have done since before the baby - so with any luck I'll be able to get it written in a slightly more reasonable time frame. This is a little short, but it seemed like a good place to stop. Next up, we'll get into more history, and, I think, a bit of a field trip.

I'm glad to be back in the saddle.

Ta,

Courtney