MILLENNIUM MAGIC

The Philosopher's Stone

Chapter 5

The Truth Revealed

BOOM.

Dudley jerked awake and asked stupidly, "Where's the canon?"

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands – Harry and Ryou realized that this was what had been in the thin package he brought.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you – I'm armed."

There was a pause.

Then the door was suddenly hit with such force that it fell clean of its hinges and landed on the floor. A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, knotted beard, but you could make out his eyes, tiny and black but warm.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, put the door back in the frame, and then turned to them all. "Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey."

He moved over to the sofa as Dudley seized up in fear. The sight of the horrified look on his face caused Bakura to chuckle darkly.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked – much to the enjoyment of Bakura – and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"An' here is Harry an' Ryou!" said the giant. When the twins looked up into his eyes, they realized they were crinkled into a smile, "Last time I saw you two, you was only babies," he turned to Harry, "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got your mum's eyes," and added to Ryou, "and you're just the opposite! Just like Lily, save fer the hair."

"You knew our parents?" Ryou asked in awe.

He didn't receive an answer, because Uncle Vernon made a funny raspy noise before speaking, "I demand you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easy as it was made out of rubber, and threw it in a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise as the twins tried to stifle their laughter behind their hands.

"Anyway – Harry, Ryou," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday fer yeh, here – I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste alright."

From an inside pocket of his black coat he pulled a slightly squished box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky birthday cake with Happy Birthday, Harry/Ryou written on it in green icing. The twins looked at each other in awe and surprise. This was the nicest thing they'd ever received for their birthday. Harry looked up at the giant, "Who are you?"

Ryou rolled his eyes, "What my brother here meant to say was, 'Thank you'."

"Yeah, right," Harry grinned sheepishly.

"Yer welcome," the giant chucked, "But it's true, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm, then Ryou's.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together, "I'd not say no ter summat stronger, if yeh've got it, mind?" His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shrivelled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace, they couldn't see what he was doing but when drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the hut with light and warmth.

'What the? No one builds a fire THAT fast!' Bakura said, suspecting there's something more than what meets the eye here.

'I think we can trust him, though,' Ryou replied, 'He's nice. And we're warm!'

'Fine, just don't come crying to me when this thing goes to heck.'

The giant sat back down on the sofa and began pulling all sorts of things out of his pockets: a copper kettle, a squishy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid he took a swig from before beginning to make tea.

'Speaking of things that are technically not supposed to be happening –'

'Bakura, please…'

'What? Just pointing out the obvious.'

Soon the hut was filled with the smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six, fat, juicy slightly from the poke, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

The giant chuckled darkly, "Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattinin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."

'BURN!' Bakura howled with laughter. Although he mistrusted this man at best, the Dursleys poised a far greater treat to Ryou.

The giant passed the sausages to Harry and Ryou, who were so hungry they had never tasted something so wonderful, but they still couldn't take their eyes off of the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, Harry asked, "I'm sorry, but we still don't really know who you are."

"Call me Hagrid, everyone does. An' like told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts – yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er – no," said Ryou.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," said Harry quickly.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrunk back into the shadows, "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't getting yer letters, ('He knows about the letters,' Bakura said, 'maybe we'll finally get some answers.') but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer crying out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

"All what?" The twins and Bakura asked in unison.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered, "No wait jus' one second." He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall. "Do you mean to tell me that these boys – these boys! – knows nothin' abou' – about ANYTHING?"

The twins seemed to think that this was taking things a bit too far. They had been going to school, after all, and their marks weren't that bad.

"We know some things," Harry said, "We can do, you know, maths and stuff."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand dismissively, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?" Ryou asked.

Hagrid looked like he was about to explode, "DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something like "mimblewimble" (which, I might add, isn't a word.)

"But yeh must know about yeh mum and dad," he said, "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

"What? Our – our mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"Yeh don' know…yeh don' know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare, "Yeh don' know what yeh are?" He said finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly seemed to find his voice, "Stop! Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boys anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would've quailed under the furious look he now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage, "You never told them? Never told them what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer them? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you have kept it from them all these years?"

During this exchange, Bakura slipped into full control of Ryou's body, and he was getting impatient. "Get to the point! Kept what from us, exactly?"

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry, Ryou – yer a wizard."

There was silence as the twins registered these words. Bakura recovered first. "That's bull!"

'Bakura!' Ryou tsked at his Yami's language.

"We're what?" Harry gasped.

"A wizard, o' course, an' there's no half-truth in that," Hagrid replied, "an' yeh'll be thumpin' good un's, I'll say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum and dad like yours, what else would ye be? And I reckon it's 'bout time yeh read yer letters."

The twins stretched out their hands and at last took the yellows envelopes. They pulled out the letters and were silent while they read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WIITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (order of Merlin, Frist Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Heamistress

Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he managed to stammer, "What does it mean, they await our owl?"

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart-horse, and from yet another pocket in his coat he pulled an owl – a real life ruffled looking owl – a long quill and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry and Bakura read upside down:

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Harry and Ryou their letters. Taking them to buy their things tomorrow. Weather's horrible. Hope you are well.

Hagrid.

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though he did something as usual as talking over the telephone.

Harry realized he was gaping and closed his mouth quickly.

'What else does he have hidden in that coat?' Bakura thought suspiciously.

'Bakura…'

Bakura supressed a groan. Stupid Hikari preventing him from doing what Yamis do…

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight. "They're not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted, "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him."

"A what?" Harry said, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nomagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him? Wizards indeed!"

"You knew?" said Harry, "You knew we're – we're wizards?"

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly, "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that – to that school – and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was – a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily, they were proud to have a witch in the family," she stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on, "then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew that you'd be just as strange, just as abnormal, and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

And that's when it happened.

In a red-hot rage Ryou forcibly took back control, and when Bakura tried to stop him, he was unable to do so. Ryou got up, his face white and fist clutched. He glared at the pathetic woman in front of him, "STOP. DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK ANOTHER WORD OF OUR PARENTS! You think that Mum is better off dead! I wish YOU were dead. She deserved better than you as a sister."

Aunt Petunia was left cowering in a corner. Ryou turned to Uncle Vernon, his next victim.

"AND YOU! Lying to us! You told us our parents died in a car crash."

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled into a corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry and Ryou Potter not knowin' their own story when every kid in our world knows their names."

Ryou had been so furious; he locked himself in the soul room, refusing to come back out. He left a very bewildered Bakura behind as Hagrid chewed out Uncle Vernon.

"Is he okay?" Harry asked quietly.

"I – I don't know," Bakura answered. "He's not talking to me. Damn, Hikari!" he whistled, looking at the ring, "I've never seen him so…so PISSED at anyone."

"Let's just give him time," Harry said.

"For once, you have a sensible idea," Bakura agreed.

"But why? What happened?" Harry asked Hagrid, who suddenly looked anxious.

A/N: Damn, Ryou, you scary! I'm never getting on this guy's bad side. On a positive note, this chapter is the longest I've written for this story so far! Thanks for all the people who followed and reviewed so far! I'm doing this for you guys!