An American at Hogwarts

Another Misadventure

Mrs. Weasley was not all too happy about our little adventure. Granted, she had pretty good reason to be upset. The car we had used was, strictly speaking, illegal. Mr. Weasley would have gotten in a lot of trouble had we been seen. She was only really upset at her kids, though. In fact, she was quite happy that Marie had thought to leave a note, and relieved to see that Harry was alright. She gave me a bit of a frown, almost as if she expected better from me, but that was it. Once she was done yelling at her three sons, Harry went off to help Fred, George, and Ron degnome the garden, while I pulled Marie aside to test something I had been thinking about. We went over to sit underneath a tree and I pulled out my wand.

"Y/N? You know we can't use magic outside of school, right? It'll get picked up by The Trace."

"That's what I'm trying to test. The Trace isn't a thing in America, and I was born over there. From everything I've read, its something that gets put on you at birth. I think I might not have it on me. Anyways, even if I'm wrong, the Ministry thought Harry used magic outside of school a couple weeks ago, and he said he only got a warning letter. Worst case scenario, that's all that'll happen."

Marie frowned. "Are you sure about this, Y/N?"

"Come on, aren't you even a little bit curious as to whether or not I'm right? It would be pretty cool if I was, right?"

She laughed softly. God, I loved that laugh. "Alright, fair enough. Just don't come to me if you get in trouble, alright?"

"Wouldn't dream of it!"

With that, I aimed my wand at a nearby boulder.

Depulso!

The boulder rolled a few feet until it slammed into a downed log. I sat there for a moment in silence, not entirely sure what to expect.

"Well, I didn't feel anything. No weird tingle or nothing. I think I might have been on to something!"

Marie sighed. "Maybe. We'll see if you get any angry letters later on I suppose."

I gave her a slight smirk. "10 galleons says I don't."

"You're on."

I spent the next couple hours showing Marie what I had been working on over the summer, since I had sort of forgotten to when we were back in New York. I hadn't made all too much progress with the more advanced spells, but I had learned a few new, simpler ones. I was pretty happy with my progress overall, even if mastery over the blasting curse remained as elusive as ever. I certainly felt more confident about my chances in a potential duel than I had a couple months earlier, and that was more than enough reason to be satisfied.

As time passed, my theory was seemingly proven correct. I did not, in fact, receive any angry threatening letters that day, or indeed the next. Marie was a bit grumpy about losing our bet, but she forgot about that after I gave her a quick kiss. Ginny was, predictably, even more anxious around Harry than she was with me. I'm pretty sure she may have had a slight crush. The third day Harry was there, at breakfast, she managed to somehow smash her face into her porridge when he asked her what she was looking forward to most about her first year at Hogwarts. Honestly, it was kind of cute how embarrassed she got. The day prior, I tried to talk to her about it and tell her that she didn't need to worry about it as much as she was, but she just ran off when I approached her, so I gave up. I'd have to get Marie or Hermione to do that, I suppose. After we finished eating, we all got ready to head off to Diagon Alley. Mrs. Weasley was a bit worried about the cost of all the supplies with Ginny needing her stuff, and I all but forced her to accept a bag of galleons my mom had given me to get something nice for myself. I had more than enough money in my vault, after all, and I had already gotten enough out back at the end of the school year for my second year supplies. We all lined up in front of the fireplace, which Harry seemed a bit confused about. Ron seemed to notice this as well.

"Um, dad? I don't think Harry has travelled by Floo before. He might need some help."

Mr. Weasley looked down at Harry, seeming slightly excited at being able to teach him about Floo. "Oh, of course! Ron, you go first, show him how it's done!"

Ron nodded and took a handful of powder from a sack next to the fire. He stepped in, and tossed it down.

"Diagon Alley!"

Harry's eyes went wide as he disappeared in a puff of green smoke. Mr. Weasley gave Harry a slight nudge.

"Go on now! Just remember to speak clearly, alright?"

Harry nodded a bit nervously, taking some powder and stepping into the fire, seemingly a bit nervous that he would get burned.

"Dia-diagonally!"

Mrs. Weasley groaned as he disappeared.

"What did he just say?"

"I think he said diagonally, mum." Said George, trying to hold back laughter.

Mrs. Weasley sighed. "Alright, well he cant have gone too far. Everyone else, come on now, head on through. We'll just have to find him when we get there."

The rest of us went through one by one, fortunately not having any more incidents like Harry's. Unfortunately, as we had feared, Harry was not at the fireplace we got out at. He'd been sent somewhere else. We wandered around for a bit, finding Hermione and her parents first. Mr. Weasley was rather excited to meet them, and dragged them off to the Leaky Cauldron to extract more information about how muggle technology worked. Finally, we saw a familiar face through the crowd. Harry had somehow been found by, of all people, Hagrid!