Chapter 4
"So, Milo, did you defend Aunt Petunia's garden from the neighboring pests?" I smiled as I stroked the scruff of my beloved pet, who over the past year had grown from a tiny squeaking but very feisty ball of fur into the true terror of our neighborhood. The dark gray troublemaker, raised on Aunt Petunia's home cooking, had grown to nearly four kilograms, acquired a stylish scar on his right ear, and managed to fight just about every cat in our suburb.
"Mrrr!" He was very proud of that, now guarding the territory entrusted to him. A useful tomcat, even if he had taken a dislike to my foster relatives. Despite all the affection Dudley, Vernon, and even Petunia had for the furry little bastard, Milo himself was antisocial and aggressive. And if that had not been too much of a problem when he was still a kitten, now...
There was no counting the bloody scratches my cat had left on the hands and faces of the overly pushy Dursley family. Only I was graciously allowed to touch him... and he listened to me as well. Not always, of course, but after some persuasion from me, he would even let Dudley or Vernon hold him, which on the one hand irritated the stout father-and-son pair terribly, and on the other hand somehow softened and smoothed out the sharp edges in my relationship with my foster family.
So my time spent being punished in the cupboard had definitely been worth it after all. Milo's arrival in our house was absolutely worth it... And on top of that, the fluffy little menace really did turn out to be a magical cat. How did I realize it? I simply felt it... Not right away, but while trying to understand what made the cat that had come into our house different from most other animals, I learned to sense the difference, and at the same time noticed how he was slowly feeding on my magic.
More precisely, not on my magic itself. As far as I could tell, Milo was not some kind of magical parasite... Rather, he somehow managed to absorb the remnants of the magic I had already released through controlled magical outbursts. Or at least that was the conclusion I came to... by reading the emotions of the fluffy little bully and simply observing his behavior.
The cat became far too demanding and clingy after I did any serious spellwork. And he almost always slept in my cupboard, choosing precisely the spots that had earlier been the targets of my magical manipulation... I think that kind of proximity to magic is quite beneficial for Milo.
There had to be a reason why, in magical terms, he was clearly superior to the magical cats belonging to our neighbor... And those cats too, I now believed, had been sneaking into our yard in search of the remnants of the magic I used, for example, in our garden. Lately, Aunt Petunia had started loading me up more actively with work in her flowerbeds.
Before that, surprisingly enough, she had tried to push Dudley into helping there too... But with his elephantine grace, my cousin posed more of a threat to trample every plant in the garden, so he was soon reassigned to help Aunt Petunia clean the house. As far as I was concerned, that was a far worse chore, and I cleverly got out of it by sneezing nonstop and pretending to have every symptom of dust allergy.
That was easy enough, since in my previous life I really had had a mild allergy to dust mites... It came as a package deal with an allergy to shrimp, the taste of which I could actually enjoy just fine in this life... But that is not the point. The main thing was that I was quite satisfied with how the household duties had been divided.
I was actually very good with plants. I had even learned to channel my magic into the soil, purely by accident noticing that Aunt Petunia's flowers liked that kind of nourishment... And my aunt, who took such pride in her garden, a pride most visible after talking to the neighbors, sometimes even gave me a bit of pocket money. Far less than Dudley got, of course, but something told me that the Harry Potter I knew from the films had never even had that much...
Now, at the ripe old age of nine, I could safely say that I had settled into my new family fairly well... And overall, I was spending this new life quite productively. I was doing well in school, had a few groups of so-called friends, had pushed the most criminal elements out of Dudley's gang, had knocked a bit of sense into my cousin... and even got myself a cat!
"Rrrr!" Though, of course, it was worth asking who had really gotten whom. Maybe it was Milo who had found himself an endless source of free magic and was now protecting me from all the other claimants to spare magical energy... Although that was not especially important. There was, if anything, even too much magic in me lately.
A year or a year and a half ago, one not particularly strong magical outburst had been enough to calm the force pressing inside me, but now... sometimes even five outbursts a day were not enough to settle the magic. Fortunately, my training, and perhaps simple growing up, was gradually bearing fruit. The longer I used my magic, the easier it became to control.
I had even learned something like spells! Well, if that was not too grand a word for my skills in cleaning my own cupboard, my ability to infuse the earth with magic, and my capacity to sense the magic of other living beings around me... Yes, that last ability was not passive either. To "look deeper" into a living creature, I needed serious concentration and a certain amount of magic. So with some stretching, that could also be considered a spell...
Oh, and I had also become excellent at hiding from other people's sight... This "technique" came to me so easily and naturally that when I was playing hide-and-seek with Dudley's friends, I did not immediately realize why Gordon, who had climbed right into my tree, still failed to notice me sitting "very inconspicuously" on a branch.
And this concealment required only the bare minimum of magic. So little that, with enough focus, I could almost keep the magical camouflage on myself around the clock. I could even hide from Mrs. Figg's dogs and cats!.. That was why I often used this ability, whether to peacefully train my magic or, like now, to sit carefree on the roof of my uncle's garage. From up there, I had a wonderful view of the road and a good portion of our suburb.
And in return, no one could see me at all, so nobody was in any hurry to chase a little boy down from such a "dangerous" place that was "not meant for children's games." Even Aunt Petunia or old Mrs. Figg, who in any other situation were more sensitive to anything magical, did not see me, which gave me a certain confidence in my concealment ability... Which, however, in practice turned out not to be quite so absolute.
"Heeey! Boy! What are you doing up there? Get down from that garage before you fall off!" A somewhat distant, hoarse male voice reached me... making both me and Milo, whom I could also include within my invisibility, flinch in alarm and start looking around.
"Um... Are you talking to me?" I shouted toward some scruffy man in an ordinary office suit, who apparently had somehow managed to bypass my camouflage.
"Of course I'm talking to you! Do you see anyone else up there?" the man barked, though not quite as loudly now. I could not have given him more than forty. A young man, but one who had clearly let himself go, and somehow he had managed to notice me...
"Strange, very strange," I frowned, focusing all my attention on the stranger... and almost immediately realized that standing before me was a real wizard! A strong wizard too, not at all like old Mrs. Figg or her cats... "I'm not sure that comparison even makes sense... And I still can't measure my own magic, but getting acquainted with an adult from the magical world definitely wouldn't hurt."
"Sir... sorry for the stupid question, but are you by any chance a wizard? Ordinary people weren't supposed to notice me," I called out as gently and cheerfully as I could, already rejoicing inwardly and hoping to squeeze at least a little of the information I so badly needed out of this man.
"I mean, this is my third year living here, and everything I know about magical society comes from not particularly reliable films from my previous life," I thought with a smirk, and judging by the startled reaction of the disheveled man, I had hit the mark exactly.
"Oh... So you're from the magical world too?.. I didn't think there were any other wizards living in this backwater," the man seemed slightly thrown off as he slowly crossed the street and came toward me.
"Distract the neighbor's cats," I murmured almost soundlessly to Milo, then quickly slid down the sloped roof. After that, I dangled from the edge and jumped to the ground. A well-practiced route down that did not give away my presence on the roof with any ladders or stools.
"That was nimble... Don't your parents scold you for stunts like that?" the other wizard came up to me, behaving quite kindly and even with a bit of interest. Apparently, he wanted to get acquainted with another wizard from this backwater.
"My guardians can't see me either. Not unless I want them to," I smiled lightly, while trying to strengthen my concealment as much as possible... I was very curious how it would work on a wizard, or whether it would work at all.
"Ahem, yes, your Muggle-Repelling Charm is quite something, it even blurs my vision," the wizard muttered, a little strained... and his gaze became much sharper and more attentive. He must have realized I was pulling off these tricks without a wand. "Wait a second, so are you Muggle-born too?"
"No, not exactly..." I hesitated, unsure how best to describe my origins... Fortunately, Aunt Petunia had long since allowed me to wear my hair in a style that hid my overly noticeable scar, even if it seemed to me lately that it had faded a little. So this local representative of the magical world did not seem to have recognized me yet...
"And it would be better if it stayed that way. Who knows what this wizard might want to do with a boy famous in the magical world... Suspecting some random passerby of bad intentions might be excessive, of course. But for now, it's better not to reveal my real identity," I thought quickly, studying the rumpled figure of the man in front of me.
"My parents were wizards, but they died in the last war... So I was sent to live with relatives. They're not magical, but overall they're all right... Though they don't like magic and are afraid of it, so it'd probably be better if you didn't meet them... Or at least didn't tell them that you're a wizard," I said quickly, choosing a version of the truth that was accurate enough, just without unnecessary details.
"Maaaan, that must be an unpleasant situation... Sorry if I touched a nerve or upset you," the wizard's face fell almost instantly, apparently worried that he had made me think about my dead parents. First point in his favor.
"Don't worry about it. I don't remember my parents anyway. They died when I was still a tiny kid," I shook my head lightly, doing my best to show that the past did not bother me much. "Although... If you really want to apologize... maybe you could tell me something about the magical world? You couldn't get information out of my aunt even with Uncle Vernon's pliers."
"Hah, crafty little thing..." the wizard laughed without any malice, glancing quickly at his wristwatch. "All right, I'll tell you something interesting... I don't think it'll count as breaking the Statute of Secrecy, and I can understand your feelings well enough. In my family, you know, I was the first wizard at all!.. Quite the fun time it was while they explained to me what the magical world was and how I was supposed to behave in it... By the way, my name's Krusho Zhelov."
"Polish?" I asked, a little surprised, not hearing the slightest accent in his speech... But his name definitely did not sound British. More like something from Eastern Europe, if my guess was right.
"More Bulgarian, and even then only on my father's side. I was born and raised in Bristol," Krusho waved off the question easily, though he did not hide a trace of surprise at my reaction. Apparently, children my age did not often ask things like that. "And what is your name, young wizard?"
"Harry Dursley," I lied easily. Even though I had a rather good impression of Krusho Zhelov, I still was not in any hurry to reveal my real identity. Magic protects the cautious.