DISCLAIMER! This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy. Just playing on her beach.
People! If my writing offends you, don't read it. There is no cause to get bent out-of-shape about one of my stories.
At the end of Harry's third year, during the confrontation in the Shrieking Shack, Pettigrew drops a magical sack that belonged to James Potter. Harry grabs it and hides it, not looking inside until he returns to No.4 Privet Drive. Therein, he finds a journal begun by Lucius Malfoy with the spell to cast the taboo on Lord Voldemort's name, notations on alternations made by Regulus Black, and Peter Pettigrew's plans to recast the spell on 'Lord Voldemort' and 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.' What can Harry do with this spell?
&&***&& TabooOur tale begins in the Shrieking Shack at the end of Harry Potter's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In the confusion of the moment where Scabbers – Ron's pet rat – is revealed to be the Animagus Peter Pettigrew. The two grownups yelled and pushed Pettigrew about the room. But the dirty wizard pushed back, shouted that Black was a Death Eater, and tussled with the escaped convict and werewolf. Harry noticed Hermione was petrified, but she stood in front of Ron with his broken leg. When the teenage wizard moved to protect Hermione, the three adults knocked him over.
Peter Pettigrew tumbled to the floor with Harry, but the rat Animagus rose to his feet and moved away. As he climbed back to his feet, Harry saw a dirty, small sack on the floor and what captured the teenager's attention was the emblem on the sack – the Potter family crest. His quick reflexes allowed Harry to grab the sack and slip it into a pocket of his robes, where he promptly forgot about it.
About that time, Professor Snape arrived in the shack and threatened everyone. In the continuing arguments, Peter Pettigrew transfigured his rat shape again and escaped. Under the light of the full moon, Professor Lupin began his transformation into his werewolf form, so the Animagus Sirius Black led the werewolf into the Forbidden Forest. The students hurried and returned to the castle with Professor Snape (who levitated Ron and kept the boy knocked out to stop the complaints about his leg).
Once in the infirmary, Harry Potter traveled back in time two hours and saved his godfather from the Dementors with his Patronus of the stag. And then he and Hermione saved his godfather again by helping him escape from a sealed room before another Dementor could kiss the wizard. Finally, he watched his just-revealed godfather fly away on the back of the hippogriff.
With a moment to rest, the adrenalin leaving his system, Harry realized he was exhausted. When Madam Pomphrey escorted him to his regular infirmary cot, he fell into it and slept without dreams. Then she pushed Headmaster Dumbledore out of the infirmary, locked the doors, and raised the nighttime wards that prevented anyone from entering except when Poppy opened the door.
Next, the matron provided a cot behind the curtains for Hermione. Once Poppy was certain the Skelegro potion worked properly to heal Ron's broken leg, she dealt with the constant complaints of the boy by giving him a half-dose of dreamless sleep.
The following morning, Harry woke last, and once Madam Pomphrey released him, he hurried to the dorm to shower and change. He wore the same school robes as the previous day. After breakfast, the boy-who-lived hurried to the Hogwarts Express with the other students, heading home for the summer holidays.
During the train ride that lasted many hours, Ron was full of tales, but Hermione laughed and told everyone the redhead was exaggerating. Harry remained quiet and wished he'd been able to leave with Sirius Black the previous evening. He dreaded the coming weeks locked away in the spare room at No.4 Privet Drive. When the train drew close to London in the afternoon, and the other students hurried out of the compartment with their trunks to meet their families, Harry prepared to leave Magical Britain and return to Muggle Britain by removing his outer robe to pack it in his trunk.
CHANGE && What is This Sack?Searching the pockets in the outer robes, Harry found the sack with the Potter seal sewn into it. He stared for a moment and thought, 'I forgot all about this. Probably a good thing too, or Snape or the headmaster would have taken it from me.'
Harry opened the sack quickly and found a large collection of items, including wands, galleons, pound notes, a book, and a large number of vault keys. The contents of the sack certainly were larger and weighed more than the sack seemed.
'This must be magic,' Harry decided. 'And no one knows I have it.'
He looked through the sack's contents quickly and found one wand was the same length as his own phoenix feather wand, so he placed his wand into the sack as well as his cloak of invisibility. The sack folded up and fit inside Harry's pant pocket, vanishing from sight. He kept the other wand out, planning to surrender it to Uncle Vernon once they arrived at Privet Drive. The entire time he rode in the back seat with a silent Petunia and Vernon in the front seat, Harry wished for a family – anyone who cared about him. At the house, Harry opened the trunk and placed the wand inside. Then Uncle Vernon locked the trunk in the cupboard under the stairs while Petunia took her nephew to the kitchen so he could begin preparing supper.
CHANGE && Harry's RoomThe late afternoon passed quickly with Harry cooking (and eating) a supper the Dursleys consumed in the same way his friend Ron ate, then doing the clean up before trudging up the stairs to his room. Vernon casually came behind the teenager and locked him in his room after a quick trip to the loo.
"Keep quiet tonight, and don't disturb us!" ordered the man. Harry nodded his agreement as the door shut and four locks turned. Hedwig was out hunting as Harry turned on the lamp and lay down to rest.
'Things here will never change,' the teen told himself. 'I'll just bear with it and not give Vernon and reason to yell or try and hit me.'
Turning out the light, Harry fell asleep, and he had only dreamed a couple of moments of his godfather.
The next day began with Harry making a tremendous breakfast for his relatives, eating a small bowl of porridge with some old strawberries, and handling a list of chores that included cleaning the entire downstairs, preparing lunch (sandwiches and crisps for Dudley and a salad for Aunt Petunia). The day continued with cleaning until he prepared dinner.
'I should be a chef,' Harry decided as he washed up after the meal. 'The magical world's not got anything for me. Maybe a chef in a magical restaurant.'
When evening arrived, Vernon locked Harry in his room again. The teenager was not sleepy sleep, so he went through his pockets. The sack he'd found with his family emblem on it had remained in his pants pocket since he got off the train. Now, in the privacy and quiet of his room, he'd examine the contents. First, there were his wand and his invisibility cloak. The items that he had placed inside.
The next items were ones Peter Pettigrew had placed inside – the sack seemed to keep things in some order. There was a journal of some sort, thirty-seven gallons, and a few sickles. Next came a wand made of white wood that felt terrible in Harry's hand. He placed it on the rickety table before looking further. This time, he pulled out two more wands– both felt good in his hands. The first was eleven inches long in mahogany. The second was 10 ¼ inches long and made with wood from a willow tree.
'The day I got my wand, Ollivander said Dad's wand was eleven inches mahogany and Mum's was ten and a quarter inches made from willow.' Harry stared at the pair of wands. 'Pettigrew stole these wands that night.'
Then he sat back and looked at the other wand – thirteen and one half inches long and white – the wand described as used by Tom Riddle, the wizard who became Lord Voldemort.
'Pettigrew was there! He took the Dark Fidget's wand after he vanished,' Harry decided.
It was many minutes before Harry moved again – he had the wands his parents had used, and he would treasure them. But he also had the wand that belonged to HIM – the wizard who killed his parents and left him an orphan with a terrible scar on his forehead.
A thousand ideas ran through his head – burn the wand, break it into a thousand pieces. Tell someone…this idea was chewed over for a while and after his experiences the last three years in Magical Britain, he asked himself, 'Who would I tell? Hermione would say give it to Dumbledore who'd probably lose it. Ron would be jealous I had the wand that belonged to the Dark Lord or get super scared and tell his mum who'd tell Dumbledore and take it away from me.'
He shook his head, 'Professor McGonagall would frown, give me detention for stealing, and tell me there wasn't any danger. Snape…he'd give me detention and take points for lying.'
'I'll read about wands in Hogwarts a History before I do anything,' the boy decided. The white wand wasn't put back in the sack. He placed it at the back of the shelf in the small closet in the room, under a box of old jars that Aunt Petunia kept for storing extra cleaning supplies.
'What else is in here?' he wondered and reached inside. With all the items removed that had been placed by Peter Pettigrew's hands (and magic), Harry's magic seemed to register better with the sack. There were many more items available for his hands now. He pulled out a dozen wands, several wrist sleeves for wands, a goblin wallet with over two thousand galleons and a money clip fat with pound notes of various denominations that added up to another thousand pounds total, and a large number of vault keys.
There were a few letters in the bottom of the sack – Harry was teary-eyed after reading one of the notes from Lily Evans to James Potter confessing her love for Prongs and her sorrow to hear that his parents had died of wizard's flu. The letters were from the summer of 1977, just before the start of their seventh year at Hogwarts.
'Why did that wizard – Peter Pettigrew – have my dad's bag?' Harry wondered. 'Sirius said Peter was the secret keeper and brought the Dark Wanker to the house that night.'
Looking through the wands and money again, Harry again decided the rat Animagus was a thief as well as a betrayer.
As he prepared for bed, Harry strapped one of the wrist holders on his arm and loaded his wand. Then he returned every item to the sack – except for the white wand that was hidden in the closet. Finally, Harry turned out the lamp and settled into his bed, his mind racing for more than an hour before he fell asleep.
SCENE END