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Deep Roots	By : FemmeBono Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 3186 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: No I'm not making money off JK Rowling's work, this is pure (free) fanfic and I own nothing to do wif Harry Potter stuffs.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
A/N: For Kurai, mjd and magpie, thanks for the reviews! As you can see I'm
working on updating as often as possible and have a solid week to work on it
now. Now I swear I'm moving away from her background and into the meat of
things...

Family Bonding
Alyssa cradled the phone with a shoulder as she tried to focus simultaneously
on the conversation with Hetty and the article before her. In the past few days,
she felt as though she and the boy straddled two different worlds. They had
spent a day or so exploring London together--Alyssa because she had never before
been to England and Harry because he had never been allowed out unless
absolutely necessary. Despite that, she was amazed when he suggested they stay
in a dingy pub with guestrooms upstairs, right in the heart of the city. No one
else could see it apparently except for those who frequented it. In fact, it
seemed that there was a whole subculture teeming with people of all walks of
life right under the noses of the average Londoners.
"Alyssa, honey?" her mother's voice snapped her back out of her
reverie as she tried to regain the thread of the conversation.
"Sorry, Ma, what did you say?"
"Have you heard from that sister of yours since Sunday?"
"No, actually. I doubt I will. They're a little too resistant to accept
him for what he is and I'm a little too tolerant. I have a feeling I'm like the
friend of the enemy a bit, and then too I had the sense that she's not a little
jealous of her sister... and her nephew."
"If she only knew..."
"Yeah, exactly. She'd probably really hit the ceiling, and I think Harry
and I both already had enough of the recriminations for things that are beyond
us."
Alyssa spared a glance over at Harry who seemed engrossed in cleaning a
broomstick.
"So what are you going to do now?"
"Well, my main plans are to spend the rest of the summer with my brand
new nephew," she said smiling as Harry looked up and grinned. "And
when I get him sent off to school I'll come home and we'll just have to discuss
what happens during the holidays. I've gotten one article sent off to Reems
already on the big failure of a reunion I had, skirting around some of the seamier
topics the readership would never get... and I'm working on a travel piece now
from my experiences 'out and about' as they put it. I figure I have enough
material on the mechanics of tracking down biological family and tourism abroad
that it should keep me meeting my deadlines until I get back."
"Good to hear it. I still worry about you baby. And what are you and
Harry up to today?"
"Ah... he wants to take me to some sort of alley where they all do their
shopping. I've taken a look at it so far through the window and it is absolutely
bizarre. Looks like something out of the Renaissance."
"Sounds like it's right up your alley." Hetty cackled at her own
joke even as the connection crackled over the phone.
"Funny, Ma."
"It was cute, admit it. You know how you are about your Renn faires."
"True. Anyway, I've got to get going. This will probably be an all-day
thing, and I think my battery's shot too already. It doesn't seem to take it
long here for some reason--the phone or the laptop."
"Alright, well you two be careful off gallivanting on your own and tell
Harry I love him and can't wait to meet him."
"Sure thing."

"Love you, baby."

"Love you, Ma."

As she hit the end button on her phone, Alyssa took a deep breath and looked
over at Harry, who was still finishing up trimming twigs from around the base of
his broom. Thinking briefly of how long it was before she had heard those
words, she wondered if he had ever heard them from his aunt and uncle. Odds
were he had not and that knowledge burned deep in her gut. She would just have
to make it up to him, and considering the way things had worked out thus far,
she figured she had already started in that regard. He would never have to deal
with the kind of hatred and malice people could aim at someone for something as
simple as the incidence of birth. Not if she could help it.

"So Harry, about finished?"

"Yeah, I suppose so. Are you ready?"

"Actually I was thinking I could really go for an ice cream. What do you
think?"

"I think I know just the place."
***

True to his word, Harry took her straight to an ice cream parlor in the
middle of the so-called Diagon Alley. They sat watching passersby as they ate,
Harry furiously licking his rippled fudge cone and Alyssa spooning up a frozen
strawberry cheesecake confection that she swore inspired pure lust. Without
detracting from the pure ecstasy of the treat, her eyes and ears were full of
the strangest dressed people have perfectly commonplace conversations about
dragon scales and potions, 'Quidditch' teams, and the galleons it cost for this
or the other thing. Once she realized that there must be a bank, she had Harry
take her as soon as they had finished and proceeded to exchange what 'Muggle'
cash she had for the wizarding currency. The exchange rate made her faintly
nauseous as it appeared her own coin was not worth nearly as much as theirs.
Harry's theory on that was an old prejudice against those who could not do
magic. Apparently this was one of many ways they thumbed their noses at Muggles
in an attempt to say they needed nothing non-magical people could offer. Rather
than dwelling on it, Alyssa had Harry stop at the first shop she saw, one called
Ollivander's where they actually made real wands.

"That's amazing!" To be sure, she had seen Harry use his to gain
entrance to the shopping alley, but the thought of actually owning a handmade
magical wand was all too tempting. "Let's go see if they'll make me
one."

"Erm, I'm not sure it really works that way... most of them are already
made for one thing and--" Harry broke off reluctantly as Alyssa hurried
inside. By the time he caught up, she was already introducing herself to
Ollivander himself. To Harry's surprise, the tape measure he remembered from
buying his wand was already busily taking note of her frame as Ollivander
clutched her hand in his, gazing at her intently.

"Quite so, quite so, Miss Newland. Let us see what we can find that
might do," he said as he broke contact with her and started tutting and
muttering to himself through the stacks of wand boxes. Harry wondered what game
the old man was playing at, or if he had gone round the bend. He seemed
thoroughly intent on finding his aunt a wand. He truly felt bad at the prospect
of having to tell her that she needn't have one, but she looked so thoroughly
excited that he didn't have the heart to tell her it was a moot point. He
shifted from one foot to the other as Mr. Ollivander handed her a wand.

"Willow," he barked, "ten and a quarter inches. Swishy. Good
for charms work."

Harry swallowed, then nearly choked as she flicked the wand and a tornado of
papers swirled over the desk and the lights shattered. Hang on, he
thought, that shouldn't happen at all, unless... maybe it wasn't my anger
that made the streetlamp explode.

"No, no," shrugged Ollivander, snatching the wand back. "That
won't do."

And on it went as more boxes slowly formed a fat stack of discards. Finally,
he turned back speculatively with a shorter box that most of the rest.

"We'll try this one. Birch with the core of a unicorn mare. She was
particularly feisty and somewhat troublesome, but there you have it."

As she took the wand in her hand, Alyssa knew he had found it. A warmth
spread from the tips of the fingers holding it, down her arm and throughout her
body, pooling in her belly as she felt her energy build. She swished the wand in
an arc as a sprinkle of stars fell from its tip. At last Ollivander's cracked
face and watery eyes crinkled into a smile.

"Oh, good show!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands. "There
we've done it. That'll be eighty galleons, Miss Newland and may you use it
well."

So they left the shop at last ready to dip back into the pub for a hot meal.
No sooner had they moved two shops down, however, than Alyssa spotted a shop
window of kittens mewling and trying futilely to climb the glass walls of their
cage.

"Oh, look! Oh, they're adorable. Tell you what, Harry, why don't you go
find us a table and I'll be right there," she said, gesturing him on with a
wave. "I won't be more than a minute. Go on and order me a bowl of stew or
something and maybe some bread'll be fine."

"Alright," he said somewhat reluctantly. He thought of his friend
Hermione and easily distracted she was by the fuzzy creatures. Yet his stomach
was growling something fierce, so he decided to leave her to it. And if her soup
got cold, he could just show her how to warm it again, he thought.

True to form, it was nearly twenty minutes later that she arrived and Harry
was not entirely surprised to see her carrying a box with slits in the top and
an ominous mewling coming from within. Her heart had been bought and sold for
twenty sickles when she spied a calico 'kneazle'--apparently different from a
cat--and she decided to name her Stitches, for she looked all the world like a
sleek patchwork quilt. Alyssa could scarcely contain her own shock however, when
she met up with Harry, only to find him seated with an elderly wizard who looked
up at her with a piercing, questioning gaze that she found rather unnerving.

"Oh, erm, Aunt Alyssa," Harry said rising to greet her, "this
is the headmaster of my school, Albus Dumbledore."

"Pleased to meet you, my dear," said Dumbledore, rising to take her
hand even as she laid the cat box on the table. "I have been quite anxious
to make your acquaintance."
- 4
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- 6
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Deep Roots