Disclaimer: I don't own or make a profit from Harry Potter or DC Comics.
Spoilers: everything for HP
Pairing: Harry/Luna, Ron/Hermione, Neville/Ginny, and maybe some mentions of Mia/Connor
Rating: T, pg-13
Timeframe: Begins during GOF and ends… well I haven't figured that out yet.
Chapter 1
Petunia Dursely looked through her mother's old papers desperately. There had to be some record of Aunt Moira.
Aha!
An invitation to the wedding of Moira Moore and Robert Queen. Below it was an invitation to the christening of Oliver Queen.
Perfect. Dumbledor had ony said that the boy had to stay with a member of his mother's family. Oliver Queen was her first cousin. The son of her mother's younger sister.
Now to track down his phone number.
Hearing the phone ring, Oliver Queen sighed. This was far too early to be awake. He had only come bock from patrolling a couple hours earlier. Mia was with the Titans this weekend and Connor was in New York visiting his friend Kyle. Which meant he had to get up and answer the phone.
"Hello?" he said drowsily.
"May I speak to Oliver Queen?" said a soft female voice with a British accent.
'Speaking." What could this be about?
"I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm Petunia Dursely," she said. "We only met once and you must have been two at the time. My mother was Niamh Moore, the older sister of your mother."
Niamh? He hadn't thought about Aunt Niamh in years. She'd had two daughters if he remembered correctly. Petunia was about eight or nine years older and Lily his age.
"She married that Evans guy, right?"
"Uh… yes. John Evans. Dursely is my married name." She paused. "My sister, Lily, and her husband died fourteen years ago this Halloween and I became legal guardian of their son, Harry Potter."
This had gone on long enough. Even if she was family, he was too tired to go on like this much longer. The woman obviously wanted something.
"Why are you calling?"
"You're the only family I, and well, Harry have left," Petunia said quickly. "There have been cutbacks at the drill company my husband works at and we can't afford to take care of Harry along with our own son."
"Petunia, I-"
"Harry goes to a boarding school in Scotland except for June, July, and August. He has a trust fund that pays for it. You'd only need to take care of him during the summer. Please, if you don't take him, my husband is going to put him into foster care."
"… my husband is going to put him into foster care."
Petunia couldn't help but smirk. Lily may have been the pretty and book smart one, but Petunia was the manipulative one. The freak would be gone. And those other freaks wouldn't be able to do anything about it because he would still be with family.
Oliver seemed rather resigned when he started talking again. "I'll have my lawyer contact you. I'm assuming that you'll be giving guardianship to me. When does he come back from school?"
"June first. Feel free to pick him up at Kings Cross. His train gets in at five in the afternoon." Petunia could barely contain her excitement. Finally! She was free of the boy. "I'll talk to him before then so that he knows to go with you. And I'll send him his passport. "
Harry watched as an owl landed in front of him. Except for during the summer he rarely received mail. Well, there was the mail sent to him because of the Triwizard Tournament. Harry cautiously took the mail from the owl. Hopefully it was not jinxed.
"Harry, who's it from?"
He looked up at Hermione. "Just some more fan mail. I'm going to the library to look up more spells."
"Oh," Hermione said, looking rather excited. "Do you need any help?"
"After lunch," Harry said a little too quickly. "I think I need some time to study on my own. The third task is in a month, after all."
Harry left the Great Hall, moving as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself. Hopefully Hermione would not question the lie he told her until after he read the letter.
Ignoring the looks sent his way, Harry went as far into the library as possible. He found a quiet study niche in the back. There was only one other person there.
A girl with straggly blonde hair and a wand tucked behind her ear sat at a table reading a book that made Hogwarts, A History look like light reading in comparison. A Ravenclaw judging by her robes. She glanced up at him once, her too large silvery eyes glancing at his robes, then scar and going back to the book.
Harry read the address on the envelope. The script was neat and small. Aunt Petunia's handwriting. Aunt Petunia had never sent him a letter before. What could this be about? Was she wishing him luck on the final task?
The fourteen year old snorted. It was much more likely that the letter would tell him to find a way to get himself killed during the task.
Harry opened the envelope and took out the letter. As he unfolded the letter, a small booklet fell onto the table. He picked up the booklet.
A passport. With a picture of him inside. And his name. Why would Aunt Petunia send him a passport? Did she buy him a plane ticket for Siberia? Now that was a distinct possibility.
He started to read the letter.
Boy,
You will be staying with your cousin, Oliver Queen from now on. He is your new legal guardian. He does not know about your freakishness. It would be best to keep it that way. Your grandmother, Niamh Evans and Mr. Queen's mother were sisters. Mr. Queen will pick you up from Kings Cross when you return from school. He has agreed to let you continue at that… place.
Petunia Dursely
Well, that explained a lot. At least they weren't leaving him on the street somewhere. Maybe he should get Hermione to do some research on this Oliver Queen bloke. He was sure he had heard the name before.
Harry shook his head. He'd figure it out later.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a female voice. She sounded almost as if she was in a daze.
Harry looked up. The blonde girl was staring at him with those silvery eyes of hers.
"Do what?"
"Shake your head like that." The girl seemed rather… dotty. "It won't get rid of the Wrackspurt."
"The what?"
"Wrackspurt. They're invisible, you see. They float through people's ears and make your brain go fuzzy."
"Right." Harry stretched the word into two syllables.
The girl shut the book and picked up her bag. It was then that Harry noticed her unusual clothing. A yellow shirt with a green flower design on it and a red and purple striped skirt. A necklace of butterbeer caps hung around her neck. On one leg was a blue knee high and on the other an orange knee high.
"Are you studying for the tournament?"
"Yeah," Harry said unsurely.
"Be careful," she said. Then the girl looked off to the side. "I wonder when Moody will reveal himself for the doppelganger that he is."
"What are you talking about? Professor Moody…" Harry stopped talking. What was the use? The girl had already wandered away.
Ollie waited until they were seated before he started to talk. Connor seemed curious, but did not look like he was about to ask any questions. Mia was mutilating her food, occasionally shooting him a look that said rather clearly that she knew something was up.
Finally, Mia broke the silence. "What is going on?"
"A cousin of mine will be coming to live here," said Ollie. "His aunt was quick to dump him on us. The information I found on the boy was… incomplete, at best."
"Why you?" asked Mia
"The boy-Harry, is your second cousin, Connor. His mother, Lily, was my first cousin. Other than Petunia-Lily's sister- and Petunia's son, Harry has no family other than us." Ollie took out a manila folder. "Harry's father was a man by the name of James Potter. There is no record of his existence other than his and Lily's marriage certificate and Harry's birth certificate. Lily seems to have disappeared completely after the age of eleven. The marriage certificate, birth certificate, and her presence in a picture of her parents' funeral the only evidence that she was still alive.
"According to Petunia, Lily and James Potter died fourteen years ago on Halloween in a car accident and left their son to her. There is no obituary, no death certificate. Nothing."
"What about Harry?" said Connor.
"A rather bright boy, according to his teachers. Until he started second grade, that is. After that point, he changed from a strait A student to a C- and D+ student. His grades were always a little bellow those of his cousin, Dudley. According to what I could find, Social Services visited his home on one occasion to investigate a teacher's claim that Harry was being neglected."
"What happened?" Mia looked a little disturbed by this.
"The social worker decided that the Dursleys were wonderful parents, the teacher was fired, and Harry missed a week of school because he was in the hospital recovering from-and I quote 'falling down the stairs'. After that, there are several reports of Dudley beating up Harry."
"The Dursleys were abusive, then," said Connor.
"Definitely. But there's no proof. Between seven and, well, now, Harry has gotten into trouble with the police for fights on several occasions. At the age of eleven, Harry seemed to disappear during the school year. I have yet to find a record of what 'private boarding school in Scotland' he is attending. Although, according to Petunia, Lily and James went to the same school."
"When is he coming here?"
"I'm picking him up from King's Cross on June first. You're welcome to come with me, Mia. It might be best if he were to meet you and Connor there instead of just me. Before then, why don't you two figure out which room to give him and see about getting him furniture."
"How old is he?" Mia asked.
"He'll be fifteen this summer."
On the train back to London, Harry thought about what this cousin of his would be like. He had never gotten around to asking Hermione to research him, or even told she and Ron about having a new legal guardian. One question bothered him, though.
"What's a doppleganger?"
"A double. Either a spirit or a physical form," Hermione said without looking up from her book. "Generally considered bad luck."
"How did you know that?" asked Ron.
"Honestly Ron. Don't you ever read?"