Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 2: Marseilles, With An S

28 June 1994
4 Privet Drive
1:30 p.m.

"I bet if I begged enough, I could talk Mum and Dad into letting me out of going to ... summer school," Ron said with disdain dripping off the last two words.

Jim laughed. Ron still had a week before his summer tutoring (sponsored by Harry Black) began, so he'd wheedled permission to come see Jim after finishing his morning chores. Presently, the Boy-Who-Lived and his best friend were in the backyard of 4 Privet Drive working on their katas.

"Come on, mate," his friend said. "Your folks would never turn down the chance for you to get summer wand training. It'll put you in the top ten next year for sure given how much you improved just from spending last summer in Shamballa. To be honest, I'm embarrassed that I never asked Dad to pay for you to have a wand license so we could train together back when ..."

His voice trailed off abruptly. "When my family was rich" was how that sentence was going to end.

"Still," Ron replied, "I hate that you're going to be stuck here alone all summer. Is there anything to do here in Muggle Town?"

Jim shrugged. "I haven't really gone exploring yet. I think Mum's worried I'll say or do something stupid that breaks the Statute of Secrecy."

"How? I'm a Pureblood, and I at least know how to walk to the corner store without starting an international incident!"

Jim laughed. "It's not that bad. I went with Mum and Dad to the grocery store the other night. I'd never seen one before. I'd always just assumed that the house elves made it all from nothing. And Saturday, we're going into London to buy some more Muggle clothes."

"Sounds exciting."

"Ah, shut up," Jim said in response to Ron's smirk. "I'm living the Muggle life now. I have to get my kicks where I can."

"Uh-huh," Ron said dubiously. "So has anything interesting happened since you moved in?"

At that, Jim's face turned pensive. He glanced back up at the house to make sure Lily wasn't watching out the back window.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I turned into a raven last night," he finally said.

Ron blinked a few times. "Okay. Is that a weird Muggle expression I've never heard before or are we talking actual raven?"

"The latter," Jim replied before going into the story of his adventure from the previous night. Ron couldn't help but laugh.

"Wait, you woke up naked in a tree?!"

"Shhh!" Jim hissed. "Mum and Dad don't know."

"Well, if you're changing uncontrollably into an Animagus form, don't you think you should tell them? Or at least tell your dad since he actually is an Animagus?"

Jim looked away. "It was ... kind of an impulse when I went all the way with the ritual Remus did for me. All my Mum knows is that I was working on a partial transformation to get an Animagus's natural Occlumency defenses. Dad doesn't even know that much. I'm kind of worried about how they'll take it since I'm not registered."

"Well, the way I see it," Ron replied. "You can either tell them now, or you can start working on an explanation to give them whenever you get arrested for indecent exposure!"

A week later at the Manor

On July 4, summer lessons began at the still-to-be-renamed "Potter" Manor, and after a few weeks, Harry found himself quite pleased with how things had been going. In addition to himself, Theo, Amy, and the four minor Weasley children, the group was joined by Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Sue Li, Anthony Goldstein, and Justin Finch-Fletchley. On the first morning, Harry had two laughs—in addition to the look of aghast horror on Titus Mitchell's face when he realized he'd be teaching the Weasley Terrors, there was also Regulus's gobsmacked expression when Harry introduced him to Hermione in his new identity as "Archie Goodwin," the American Halfblood bodyguard.