Fostered

Chapter One

By:

KingOfJacks

Albus Dumbledore sat penitently in his high-backed chair, pushed snugly against the wooden edges of his desk. He was staring at the door opposite him hard enough to break it, and once or twice he had thought he might actually cause the poor thing to combust. It was quite embarrassing, really, and Albus was quite happy there was no one around to see it. He had not lost control - nor come so close to doing so - in a great many years. Still, it was impossible not to do so, given the worries weighing him down just now.

In front of him was a letter. No, that wasn't correct. In front of him was an envelope. It was an old envelope, one of the hundreds that had been miraculously created for a single student. The Hogwarts quills had not been so overworked in centuries, though he thought they secretly enjoyed the challenge. The envelope was empty, its creases showing the echo of the bulge of papers it had held when it had been sent out before it had been magically returned to Hogwarts upon successful delivery. Across its face scrawled tidy, emerald green ink that plainly spelled out fifteen words that gnawed at his heart.

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Number 4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging, Surrey

Even now to look at it caused Albus Dumbledore to shudder in a way he could not remember doing since he was a boy. He remembered all to clearly the guilt he had felt then - the guilt he still felt today. It was magnified now, reflected again by the words on the envelope in front of him. Albus had carried the guilt of Arianna's death with him his entire life, and he feared idly that he might very well carry the guilty of Harry Potter's childhood with him for what remained of his life. He feared idly because he was not altogether worried about the guilt staying with him. Certainly, there were few who could say he did not deserve it.

Albus' attention returned to the far door, but he felt no lash of magic against its surface. It would remain uncharred for the time being. Today was the second week of June. The final exams were wrapping up just now. The students would have a little less than a week of complete downtime to enjoy with their friends before they embarked on a train to London and to home on the third Wednesday of the month. For most, it had been an entirely uneventful end of term. The fifth years - those who had finished with their O.W.L.s - were no doubt in their common rooms breathing the last of their panic into paper bags. The seventh years were full of doubt and excitement and fear and anticipation at this, their final week at Hogwarts. The fourth years were no doubt looking forward anxiously at the stressful year ahead of them. Of course, it was the first years that kept Albus' attention just now.

They'd made quite a show of themselves this year. Forgetful little Neville Longbottom. Snide little Draco Malfoy. Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age. Ron Weasley, a true Gryffindor and a truer friend. And, of course, Harry Potter. Madame Pomfrey still hadn't cleared the boy yet. He was suffering down in the Hospital Wing, bored out of his mind and wishing for nothing more than to be out with his friends. Albus' face crumpled. Oh, but that was another failure. A student hurt on his watch. A student he could not stand to see hurt anymore. Whatever errant thought he'd had of returning Harry to his relatives had vanished in the face of his troubles at the end of term. Albus was no seer, but he believed with all his heart that Hogwarts would not be the safest place for Harry Potter. What dangers the future held, he did not know, but he would not host Harry Potter in danger at school whilst also sending him home to a wholly different kind of danger during the summers. Albus, regretfully, had no control over one of those things, but he could certainly exercise a measure of control over the other.

Albus startled - yet another first in quite some time - as a knock echoed from the other side of the door. The Headmaster straightened himself, momentarily flustered. Truly, he was lost in thought. He ought to have been able to detect the activation of his ward scheme, warning him of a visitor. He so loved using it to appear mystically omniscient after all. Finding himself, he called, "Enter."

"Headmaster," Minerva was greeting him before she'd fully opened the door. Albus could see her face was strained, the boundaries of her propriety being pushed to their absolute limit. He forced himself not to chuckle. Albus supposed he could have told her a bit more about today's proceedings, but that would not have been nearly as fun. "Your...guest...has arrived."

Albus threw away his notions of amusement. There was business to handle. He nodded firmly, his mouth a determined line. "Send him in, Minerva," he commanded. More gently, he added, "And then go and relax. Exams are over. You deserve a bit of rest."

Minerva, ever dutiful, furrowed her brow. "You will not need my assistance?" Something in her voice suggested she was not altogether disappointed. Understandable given his guest.

Albus smiled benignly at her. "Not with this. He is an old friend."

Minerva nodded once and turned, giving Albus' guest a wide berth as he passed by her through the doorway to the Headmaster's office.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Headmaster?" the man asked in an impossibly perfect voice.

_(*)_

Harry was gazing out the window again. He'd been doing that a lot this train ride. It was starting to annoy him. It hadn't at first. He'd welcomed the state of mind - the complete lack of thought. But every time he delved too far into it, some part of himself would remind him he only had so much time left with Ron and Hermione before he wouldn't see them for three months. That always shocked him out of his reprieve enough to find the conversation again. But only for so long. He was back to staring out the window again very soon. Like now.

In his hands, he held a letter. It was thin - just a single page - and creased as if it had been folded over and over several times. Upon its surface was a tidy, looping script spelling out words that Harry had all but memorized, but that he was still completely unsure of how to feel about it. Held tightly enough in one hand that the page was taut, Harry was flapping it anxiously against the surface of his off hand and his leg.

"Really, Harry you must stop doing that," Hermione all but snapped, drawing his attention away from the window. "The sound is driving me positively batty!"

Harry blinked, looked down at his lap to where he was still mindlessly flapping the parchment and consciously willed himself to stop. It took a moment, but his hand acquiesced. He looked up sheepishly. "Sorry."

Hermione answered with silent forgiveness. Ron glanced at the paper warily. His mouth full of Chocolate Frog, he asked, "What is it anyway? You've been holding it like it bit you the whole ride."

"Chew your food before you talk, Ronald," Hermione rolled her eyes, exasperated. Still, she turned to Harry, waiting. Clearly, she was as interested in the answer as Ron was. Harry couldn't blame them. It wasn't as if he often kept things from them.

Harry spoke hesitantly. "You guys know my relatives?"

Hermione pursed her lips. Harry hadn't said much about his home life - understandable given what little she knew - but she disapproved greatly of the way her closest friend had to live. "Yes," she said evenly.

"Is that it? Awe, don't get down, Harry. Maybe it won't be so bad. It has been almost a year since they seen you." That was Ron. Tactless, as always. But trying.

Harry smiled slightly, at his friend and not what he was about to say. He waved the letter around, gesturing. "That's just it. I don't think it much matters."

"What do you mean?" Hermione frowned.

Harry sighed. Talking about anything to do with the Dursleys - even this objectively good news - was not something he enjoyed doing. "It's a letter from Dumbledore," he explained. "He says he's made arrangements for me not to stay at the Dursleys this summer."

Hermione did not look the gift horse in the mouth. "But that's wonderful, Harry!" she cried.

"Yeah," Harry muttered non committedly, but it was too quiet for either of his friends to hear. He was still completely unsure what to make of all of this.

Ron, always one to ask the obvious, scratched his head. "But then where are you staying?"

Harry gestured to the letter again. "With someone named Carlisle Cullen and his family. Dumbledore says he's a friend. A good man." Those were the exact words in the letter, as if Dumbledore thought Harry might not trust the man. Then again, after his year, he might not have.

Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "Carlisle?" she repeated. "That's an old name. Sounds Pureblood."

Ron was already shaking his head. "Nah, but Cullen doesn't."

"Another Muggle then?" Hermione suggested.

Ron didn't seem to agree with this either. "How would Dumbledore know him?"

"You don't think Dumbledore only associates with wizards do you, Ronald?"

"He might have! I don't know who he goes about with!"

Harry was already shifting his gaze back to the window. The buzz of Ron and Hermione's conversation was fading into something he wouldn't even hear. Unconsciously, his hand started to flap the paper again. The sound of it slapping against his hand and leg was oddly comforting.

Hermione and Ron brought up interesting questions. Thinking on it - and Harry had been doing nothing but thinking on it - Dumbledore's letter had been vague to the point of almost purposeful deception. Carlisle Cullen was a good man who Harry could trust. Harry would be staying with him for the duration of the summer. Carlisle Cullen would pick him up at King's Cross and drop him off again on September the first to resume his schooling. That was the gist of the letter in far more flowery words than his own. Nothing had been said of how Dumbledore knew the man, nor who the man really was. Harry didn't know if he was a wizard. He didn't know what he could say around the man. It was quite ridiculous how little Harry knew about him, given that he was about to be the man's hostage for over two months.

He frowned at himself. He supposed that was unfair. It wasn't as if he was unhappy that he didn't have to go back to the Dursleys. If he never saw them again...if he never saw a cupboard again! Harry grit his teeth. He didn't like to dwell on it. It tended to make him bitter, and that was not what he wanted to be.

"Did the letter say anything else, Harry?" Hermione's voice cut into his thoughts again.

This time, Harry didn't take his eyes off the window. "He has a big family," Harry all but mumbled, but Hermione caught it. "Five kids. All older."

"Well that will be fun!" Hermione tried to say brightly. "Like big brothers and sisters!"

Harry let Hermione have her optimism, but he was not very hopeful on that front.

_(*)_

The train ride lasted another two hours after that. Harry didn't turn away from the window again, and Ron and Hermione didn't try to pull him away again. Hermione had eventually forced his hand down against his leg, preventing any more of the incessant flapping, but that had been it. Harry allowed a bit of life to come back to him as they hauled their luggage down to disembark. He remembered more clearly now that this would be the last he'd see of his friends - his two first and best friends - for months, and he hugged them both fiercely despite Ron's protests.

Hermione was the first to leave them. Her parents were crowded close to the tracks, looking out of place and a bit uncomfortable amongst all of the wizards. She ran to them eagerly, the weight of her trunk behind her making her run lopsided. Harry watched her embrace the both of them. She had time enough to turn and wave goodbye before she disappeared into the throng of people. She would write, she'd said. Harry believed her. Ron was next. His brothers poured out of the train not far behind him like the red sea, converging into one location if for no other reason than the sheer ease they had finding each other among the black and blonde haired students. Not long after their union, their parents were there. There were hugs and kisses and pats and handshakes. They too left, albeit less gracefully and with more attention.

Which left Harry.

He rubbed absently at his shoulder, suddenly a lot more afraid than he'd been with company. Coming to King's Cross had been bad enough. The Dursleys had left him stranded, and he'd feared horribly that he wouldn't find the platform to Hogwarts and that he'd be left with no way to get anywhere remotely safe and comfortable. Harry had that fear again now, in the opposite direction. He was again alone in King's Cross with no idea of where to go. Dumbledore's letter had not provided a hint of a description of Carlisle Cullen.

With little else to do, Harry took a firm hold on the handle of his trunk, ensured Hedwig was secured tightly and set off, wandering up and down the platform, debating how long he should wait before exiting onto the Muggle side of the station. If the man was a Muggle, he may not be entirely sure of how to get to Platform 9 ¾.

Then Harry saw him, and he would admit he paused. Carlisle Cullen - and he could be no one else - was a man of average height with neatly combed blonde hair and abnormally pale skin. Everything about him screamed of perfection that Harry did not know was possible. From his stance, standing near to the wall of the platform to the easy smile on his face as he looked around, his eyes passing over students and parents with some odd amusement. His clothes stood out. He was wearing black slacks and a dark gray turtleneck sweater that hugged his neck all the way to the bottom of his chin. Definitely Muggle, Harry thought. He would have known this man was Carlisle Cullen instinctually. He needed nothing else beyond that intuition. Not even the cardboard sign he held in his hand that spelled out 'Harry Potter' like an airport limo driver waiting to pick up his passenger.

It took Harry a bit to figure out how to walk again. The man's appearance had robbed him of his higher brain functions for a moment. But he found them again and set off at a quick pace towards the man. He was suddenly much more curious to get to know Carlisle Cullen. He stopped in front of him, gazing up into eyes that were impossibly colored. Gold. Gold like honey. Like warm sunlight. Like the crosses that had adorned the walls of the church the Dursleys had taken him too when they themselves decided to go. Gold like everything that was gold but so much better than all of that.

"I'm Harry Potter," he managed to say.

That seemed to be all it took. Carlisle Cullen flung the carboard sign lazily in the direction of a trash can - it landed perfectly - and smiled at him. "So you are." He spoke with an accent that Harry couldn't place in his dazed state.

He took Harry's trunk from him without asking, reaching to take hold of the handle. Harry might have protested, but the man's hand brushed against his own and he instinctively jerked it back against the cold. He didn't know people could be that cold. Carlisle Cullen had already begun to walk off - in the direction of the barrier - when Harry's older lessons came back to him. Stranger danger was a bit overblown, but he didn't really know the man after all.

"Sorry," he called after him. Carlisle Cullen paused, turning back to him with the same indulgent smile. "Are you Mr. Cullen?"

"Carlisle, please," he requested easily. "Yes, I am."

"Sorry, it's just," Harry trailed off. He hadn't really known where he was going with that sentence. "Well, I don't really know you, you see."

Carlisle continued to smile, but he turned around and swept back over to Harry in what seemed to be far too few steps for the distance. Casually he reached into his pocket and extended a folded piece of parchment to him. Harry gazed at it for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between it and the man who was offering it. But Harry found that gazing too much into those golden eyes distracted him, and so he took the paper and unfolded it.

It was nothing substantial. The date, the time, the platform number and a summarization of how to find it. Boring, really. Except it was written in Dumbledore's handwriting. Harry would know. He'd been staring at those looping letters for three days now.

Harry returned the paper which seemed to vanish in Carlisle's hands, so quickly had he pocketed it. "Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly.

Carlisle laughed. It was a pleasant sound. "You're very cautious for your age, Harry," he told him warmly. "That is not a bad thing. But we must get going. We don't have all day."

Carlisle led him on. He passed through the barrier at a casual walk - something Harry didn't know was actually possible - and was halfway down Platform 9 by the time Harry had followed him through. Strangely, Harry wasn't really worried about Carlisle's pace. He didn't think for a moment the man would lose track of him, let alone leave him. Still, he kept a steady pace through the station, taking an oddly out of the way route that Harry knew was not very well planned. They could have saved a lot of time if they'd cut between the station's buildings. Carlisle seemed to prefer the cool air of King Cross' interior though, and Harry was not in a position to argue. Eventually, Carlisle's route ended at a parking deck. Carlisle entered into the first elevator and punched in the number for the bottom deck. It was two floors below, and Carlisle's car was waiting for them just to the left of the elevator.

Harry gazed at the car appreciatively. It was nothing special. A two door. Sleek. Silver. The roof was the soft cloth of a convertible. Nothing too special, but better than anything Uncle Vernon had ever driven. Harry decided it would be polite to say so. "I like your car," he said as Carlisle finished placing his trunk in the car's boot. He handled the heavy luggage with such ease, Harry thought someone must have snuck a feather-weight charm on it.

Hedwig's cage secured in his hand, Carlisle turned and smiled at him wryly. "Thank you, but it's a rental." He passed Hedwig off to Harry and climbed into the driver's seat, deliberating momentarily as if he was unsure which side of the car he was actually going to climb into. As if Harry could drive.

Somewhat confused, Harry placed Hedwig's cage in the back seat as comfortably as he could before he climbed into the passenger seat and buckled himself in. Harry hated how odd he felt in the front seat. It was never a place he'd been allowed to be before. He shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling.

"A rental?" he repeated, not understanding.

Carlisle turned the key, the engine purring quietly but satisfyingly to life. He was already pulling out when he answered, "Yes. I only needed something to get me to the station and back."

"I don't understand," Harry said, his head suddenly pressed back against the seat's headrest. The leather was really very soft. "Where are we going?"

"The airport," he answered easily. "I'm afraid you're not done travelling for the day, Harry. Terribly sorry."

"The airport? Wha-where are we going?" he said again.

If Carlisle was put off by Harry's repetitive questions, he didn't show it. "My family keeps a permanent residence overseas. A town called Forks. Washington State."

Harry's brain took a moment to catch up to all this information. "Washington State? The United States? America!?" His voice had grown more frantic with every question. He knew where the accent was from now.

Carlisle seemed a little amused. "Yes, of course," he said as if it were extremely natural that Harry was about to fly overseas for the first time in his life. "It's a nonstop flight to Seattle. My daughter Alice will be waiting for us. We'll drive down to Forks from there."

Harry was quite amazed that the first thing out of his mouth was, "I don't have a passport."

Almost nonchalantly, Carlisle reached into his other pocket - the pocket that had not had the letter from Dumbledore - and handed him a freshly minted passport with his name and his picture on it. Harry leafed through it dumbly. "How-?"

"Amazing what magic can do," Carlisle smiled.

Harry turned sharply to the man. "You…" he trailed off, unwilling to say the words.

"Know about magic?" Carlisle finished for him, taking his eyes off the road to look at him. He nodded, "Yes."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know why it was such a relief that this man knew his secret, but it was. "You're a wizard then."

It was not a question, and so Harry was surprised when Carlisle answered, "No."

"But then how-?" Harry stuttered. "The Statute of Secrecy. Muggles can't…"

Carlisle suddenly drummed his fingers against the steering wheel in thought. "I wonder if the Hogwarts curriculum has changed," he said more to himself. Louder, he asked, "What did you study this year, Harry? Your classes."

Surprised by the sudden change of topic, Harry blinked. It took him a moment to think of an answer. "Uh, lots of things," he said. "Potions. Herbology. Charms."

"Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Carlisle asked, though he already knew the answer.

Harry dutifully suppressed the memory of Quirrel's face and nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "That one was my favorite."

"Good," Carlisle said seeming genuinely pleased to hear this. "Then you'll remember your lessons."

Harry had the sudden notion that he was about to be quizzed and gulped. But what Carlisle said next was infinitely worse than anything he'd expected.

"Tell me, Harry," Carlisle said almost conversationally, but there was something else beneath his voice, "how you would identify a Vampire."

Harry froze at the implication, staring across the car at Carlisle Cullen in undisguised horror. His mouth worked but no sound came out. Now that he said it...cold skin, unearthly beauty, a desire to avoid going outside on a suspiciously sunny day in London.

Carlisle Cullen is a safe man, Dumbledore's letter had said. But he wasn't. He wasn't a man at all.

Carlisle sighed, but he was still smiling slightly. "Best to explain this before we get on the plane I think."

Author's Note: This story was posted and removed from this site a number of months ago due to my belief at the time that I would be unable to properly support it and my desire to clear stories that would be incomplete from my profile. That will not be the case this time, and you can rest assured that Fostered will be completed. The story will follow Harry through all seven years of Hogwarts, following canon in places and diverging from canon in others. The Cullens will, of course, play a major part in all of this, and the effect of a loving, supportive and powerful family behind Harry will affect the world in various ways.

Chapters will be posted weekly on Tuesdays.

Next time: Harry meets the rest of the Cullens.