Disclaimer: Blah blah blah... I don't own anything, poor me... blah blah blah... J.K. Rowling beat me to it. I swear... blah blllaaaahhhhh... you get the point?
Author's Note: Ok, now that that crap is done with. I just started writing this the other day... actually I started with some scene that will probably end up somewhere in the middle of the fic. If I ever get that far. I hope to finish this thing but don't be surprised if the updates are few and far between. If I decide it's not worth finishing I'll be sure to let you know. If my story resembles any other fic that you've read then let me know 'cause I'd like to read it. I know the idea isn't really new but I honestly haven't read anything like what I hope this'll turn out to be. I don't plan on having any ships, ummm I know that puts some people off but I'm really hopeless at relationships in real life and I'm pretty sure that transfers over to what I write.
Oh, one more thing... I know it isn't that long, but I'm new to writing so give me a break. (I at least tried to make it respectable, unlike those 800 word chapters Ive seen elsewhere)
Harry sighed.
Blinked.
Scratched his cheek, it had been itching slightly for the last couple of minutes.
Just to mix things up a little, he blinked again before sighing.
After the recent loss of his Godfather, Harry had little motivation to do anything. He knew it wasn't really his fault that Sirius had died, but that didn't stop him from regretting his actions. Really, he just wished he had Sirius back. Even if they hadn't known each other very well, it was nice to know that you would always have someone to fall back on, someone who cared about you.
Harry sighed again.
Right now he was just biding his time. Dumbledore said he needed to stay in the house and that was fine with him, he didn't really want to see anyone right now anyway. At least his relatives were back to ignoring him after the Order's threat at King's Cross. That left him with little to no contact with the outside world. As long as he sent a letter to the Order every couple of days he could sit and brood in his little room all he liked. There wasn't much else to do anyway.
Harry closed his eyes.
The prophecy. It was weighing heavily on his mind. After he was done grieving over his Godfather's death he would have to buckle down, become the perfect little soldier. He didn't really care what they did to him, what they fashioned him into; all he wanted to do was keep his friends safe.
His friends.
He had always relied on them. Not necessarily for their adventures, he'd done much on his own, but for their friendship. They stuck by him when it counted, believed in him, gave him hope. He would let Dumbledore use him in his little games if it would keep everyone else safe. His life had never been his own anyway.
Harry rubbed his moist eyes with his fist.
He paused suddenly, as he was wiping his eye. The door. It had just flashed through his mind again. Briefly. It was the door leading to the Department of Mysteries, deep in the Ministry of Magic. No, there was nothing he could do for Sirius, the veil lead only to death. His godfather was gone. So why was that particular door still on his mind?
His stomach rumbled…
He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything to eat, that couldn't be good for him. He figured that he'd be of little use to the wizarding world dead and resignedly made his way downstairs. Being the middle of the day, his uncle wouldn't be home so he may have a chance at a snack before his aunt chased him from the kitchen (if his aunt was home of course). He may get lucky and she'd be out on errands or some other such thing. He might get extremely lucky and find that they'd all moved far, far away and forgotten to take him with them.
Harry smiled a bit at his last thought.
He noticed that the house did seem very quiet. By now he was pretty sure that nobody was home, years of evading his relatives had given him an innate sixth sense regarding their whereabouts. It was no big loss though, he'd be able to take as much food as he'd like and nobody was around to stop him. Harry calmly made his way into the empty kitchen and started pulling things out of the fridge; he was a lot hungrier than he'd originally thought so his snack was only such in the sense that it was what his cousin Dudley may consider a snack.
Appetite sated and belly bulging off of his skinny frame, Harry sat back and considered his position. He was apparently alone in his relatives house and hadn't been bothered in days to do chores or just because his cousin felt like annoying him. It wasn't normal. He stood and cleaned up his mess before going through the living room and outside. There were at least four or five newspapers in a neat little stack by the door. It wasn't like the Dursleys to disregard the paper. Merlin forbid the neighbors see a newspaper on the front stoop. What was the world coming to?
He stepped back inside and closed the door.
The Dursleys had been gone for at least four days and hadn't even bothered to tell him they were leaving. His earlier joke seemed a lot funnier now for some reason. It was a sad thing however, that he had the whole house to himself, he had unlimited freedom to do whatever he pleased and all he wanted to do was go up to his room and sleep off his snack. He'd never felt at home in this house and being out of his little sanctuary for such a long time was strange for him.
And he was still depressed, just a little.
The silence was comforting though.
He stared at the wall for a while before going to sleep. It had been an eventful day for him; he'd actually ventured downstairs. The Dursleys' absence had done loads for his stress however. He felt much more relaxed than he had at the end of term. Sirius was still fresh in his mind, but he was more of a happy memory now. No, what really bothered him was the prophecy. Yet, here in his little room with no one around it seemed distant. He thought it over for a few days (nonstop it seems) and had decided to just go with it. He'd let it all play out and roll with the punches, he was good at that now, still being alive and all.
Harry opened his eyes… and fell off his bed in shock!
There was dark cloaked person standing in the corner of his room! So much for being relaxed!
He stayed crouched on the other side of his bed; his wand was across the room. He needed his wand. He couldn't fight without it.
And suddenly it was in his hand!
He looked at it in confusion before letting his mind get back on track.
Harry jumped up quickly and dove over… err… halfway over his bed towards the stranger in his room before he suddenly stopped in mid air. The cloaked figure chuckled quietly while Harry tried furiously to think of a way out of this. He was frozen, he couldn't even open his mouth to let loose a curse on the figure. Strangely, the door to the Department of Mysteries crossed his mind again…
The man started walking over to him, though it was only a short distance in the small room, and he was clapping…
Sweat rolled down from his brow and dripped off his chin as he strained, fighting the curse.
"Good, good, Mr. Potter. But please, settle down. I'm not here to hurt you." The man spoke in a deep voice as he pulled back his hood to reveal his sharply featured face. High cheekbones, hooked nose, graying hair, he would have reminded Harry of Snape were it not for the lack of grease in said hair and the patented sneer.
Harry seriously tried to calm his breathing, but being frozen in mid-air with no way to defend yourself tends to be a little uncomfortable.
"I'm going to let you down now. Please don't try to attack me, I'm only here to talk with you." The man said quickly upon noticing Harry's discomfort, the furniture rattling all over the room was probably a dead give away. He pointed his wand at the young man again and let him plop down onto the bed unceremoniously.
When Harry looked up he saw that the mysterious man had already conjured up a comfortable looking chair and was apparently waiting to be addressed. A million questions passed trough Harry's head but all that came out of his mouth was the expected, "who are you?"
"I cannot tell you right now, you will have to trust me for a short while. Again, I promise that I'm not here to harm you in any way"
Harry nodded at the reply and eyed the man warily; of course he wouldn't trust him, that was asking too much. With his wand still trained on the intruder he asked the next most pressing question, "What do you want?"
"I want you to help me, and in return I may be able to help you."
Harry just gaped at the man's evasiveness; the response still didn't give him any idea of what this person wanted.
He obviously interpreted Harry's silence correctly as he quickly continued where he left off. "You see, Harry, there exists an entity that acts both inside and outside of Ministry law that could make use of your unique talents. It is not so much an unknown organization. More correctly it is not… spoken… of."
Realization dawned on Harry's face. "You're an Unspeakable," he whispered out fiercely, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
"I am," the man said simply.
"And y- you want me to be one too?"
The man nodded
Harry's face scrunched up in confusion. Why did this guy want him to join an elite group of wizards and witches that did unknown research and any number of other things, he wasn't even a sixth year yet for Merlin's sake! What exactly did this guy expect him to be able to do that the highly trained Unspeakables couldn't already accomplish? He wouldn't answer until he knew more; he had no idea what this man really wanted him to do. The fact that the Unspeakables wanted to recruit him, however, was very exciting.
"Why?" Harry's brain couldn't come up with anything else at the moment.
The man sighed, "There are many reasons Harry. Though most of all, I would have to say that I have seen in you the potential to do great things for the wizarding world." The older man propped his chin on his hand as he leaned forward slightly, as if he was examining the boy before him. "You have great power, Harry, you have strength and determination, you have intelligence, and you are driven to help others. These are some of the qualities we look for in those we wish to recruit. Your battle in the Department of Mysteries did not go unseen Harry."
"…That- that wasn't anything special. I mean we were all nearly killed! And I wasn't there alone either. I had help. You can't just pop into my room and expect me to go run off to 'who knows where' with you. I still don't even know what you want from me!" Harry was getting tired of this guy's vague answers; he got enough of those from Dumbledore.
The man winced as Harry's angry outburst nearly caused his chair to topple over. "Mr. Potter, please calm down, I will answer all of your questions in time," he stated cautiously.
"Excuse me for being a little impatient, but you're the one who showed up unannounced!" Harry nearly screamed, voice laden with sarcasm.
Again, the man winced, "You're right, allow me to address your last question. The truth is that I don't know where you would best fit in. You would do well in any of the departments. You are intelligent enough to join a research team and your muggle upbringing would allow you to come up with solutions that may be foreign to those who grew up in the wizarding world. You are strong enough to fight in outright battles, think well enough on the go to run specialized missions; you could even help develop new spells with the right training. Do you see it now, Mr. Potter, you have the potential to do anything and you are wasting it at that school." The man was flushed and breathing heavily he looked almost giddy, Harry thought that he must really believe those things he'd said.
Harry had sobered up during the man's speech; he was actually being offered a position with the Unspeakables, "can you show me?" he asked quietly. He figured that if it was one of Voldemort's Death Eaters he'd have been killed long ago… plus he was really bored and a trip to the Department of Mysteries sounded fun.
The older man nodded once before getting up from his chair and vanishing it. He turned around and held out a coin that resembled a galleon. "This is a portkey that will take us to the Department of Mysteries, I assume you wish to see what you may be getting in to before giving me an answer," the man stated in a confident and professional voice, as if he'd done this countless times.
Harry nodded and nervously reached out to place a finger on the coin.
The man spoke up again, "very well," and they were gone.