Family Values
Growing up Addams: Accidental Magic
By Ishtar
FAMILY VALUES
Disclaimer: Without being as verbose as my esteemed spousal unit, I would like to make it clear that I don't own Harry Potter or the Addams Family.
Chapter 05 — Growing up Addams: Accidental Magic
Every year at Halloween, Morticia would gather the whole family together and tell them all the story of how Harry came to live with them, and what he might have to do in the future, and how the Family would stand with him when it came time for him to do it. Every year the story got a little more complicated as the children could understand more. Harry had a Destiny, and when it came, he would be ready for it.
But in the meantime, he was allowed to be a child.
For any child, growing up is an adventure. For an Addams child, it was more so. Harry, Pugsley and Wednesday had a huge house, a large yard full of interesting things, a nearby cemetery and swamp to play in, and the Watchung Mountain Reservation looming over all. Where most suburban children went to the park and played on slides and swings, the Addams children played "hide and seek" among the gravestones and caught bugs to feed to the carnivorous plants in the swamp. When they got older, they held "tea parties" at the Stone Tables and cleaned up the mystery circles after the Satanists got done with them. They excavated abandoned towns and made rubbings of pictograms carved in the walls of ancient caves. In short, they had a grand old time.
It wasn't all fun and games, of course. They had to learn things. Morticia made sure of that. But the learning things part was often disguised by the fun and games. Science and mathematics and history and even the basics of physics and chemistry, which most parents would have considered well beyond the grasp of kindergarten-age children, were devoured eagerly, particularly when linked with something that exploded or made noise. Gomez, for example, let them play with his train set, rebuilding the trestles when they collapsed, and estimating which building in the village below would be hit by the crashing and burning train.
By the time Harry and Wednesday were five, they knew how to write in cursive (Morticia never having understood why you had to teach a child to write twice) and how to add and subtract anything. They were working on multiplication. Morticia or Grandmama read a chapter of something to them every night, and if they were very good, they got two chapters. They didn't limit their reading to "children's" stories, so instead of The Cat in The Hat, the children cut their teeth on the unexpurgated Brothers Grimm, Peter Pan, and all forty of the Wizard of Oz books. Harry was particularly fond of the giant spider sequence in The Hobbit, and insisted that Morticia read it to him over and over, until he eventually made the leap into reading it for himself. Once that happened, he was allowed to read anything that he wanted in Gomez's big library, and almost anything in Grandmama's collection, except for the books that were in cages because they would bite. If he had questions, he could come to one of the adults, and the questions would be answered — virtually nothing was off-limits.
In addition to regular play outdoors, they learned tumbling and wrestling, and eventually Gomez started teaching Harry and Wednesday the basics of acrobatics and fencing, although Pugsley was not physically suited to either activity.
Each of the children began to develop their own interests. Pugsley was fascinated with how things went together and how they came apart. His room, once the children were moved out of the joint nursery and into separate bedrooms, was full of bits and bobs and parts of things he'd taken apart and hadn't figured out how to put back together.
Wednesday liked plants best; Grandmama gave her her own little garden bed to take care of outdoors, and Morticia taught her how to grow rare species in the conservatory and what to do with bits of the plants once they were grown.
Harry's main interest was animals, especially once he discovered he could talk to the snakes that were common in the area. His room was filled with tanks containing interesting beetles, newts, frogs, snakes, snails, and a two-headed turtle.
The magic of the House kept the children safe from almost everything, but it gave even Morticia pause when Harry came out of the woods one day when he was four with a three foot long, thick bodied snake draped around his neck. The dark brown hourglass shaped markings were clear against the reddish brown background colour. While Morticia knew that a Northern Copperhead wasn't as venomous as certain other snakes, it could be exceedingly painful and dangerous to a small child. Harry seemed to be completely unaware of the danger, stroking the smooth, scaly hide fondly.
"Aunt 'Tisha, look what I found! She's a big snake, and she talks!"
"Harry," said Morticia in her usual calm voice, "do be careful with that. It could hurt you if it bites."
"It's okay. She won't bite."
"How do you know that?"
"She told me."
"For real, or pretend?"
"For real. I told you, she talks! Listen!" Harry held the snake up, presumably so Morticia could hear it. Its tongue flickered out, but she heard nothing.
She shook her head. "I don't hear anything, Harry."
Harry looked at the snake. "Well, I can. She's pleased to meet you, and she's asking if she could live out by the garden shed for a little while, please?"
"Only if she promises not to bite anyone in the family, or eat any of Grandmama's kittens." Grandmama's black cat had had yet another batch of kittens, and while the children knew the facts of life (and death) for pets by now, there was no reason to deliberately put the kittens in harm's way.
"Is it okay if she bites someone who isn't in the family?"
"Quite."
Harry held a "conversation" with the snake which consisted of him hissing at it and it flicking its tongue at him.
"Okay. I'll inter … int … she says if she can taste people she'll know who not to bite."
So all the family members were duly 'tasted' and the snake was shown a kitten which was also 'tasted' (much to the tiny feline's displeasure). And for a while, the snake lived under the garden shed and reduced the local population of mice and toads. Eventually, however, it asked to be taken back to the woods on the other side of the swamp, and Harry complied, but he went to visit her every so often for the rest of the summer.
Aunts, uncles, cousins, and adults with more distant family connections came by from time to time, stayed at the House for an hour or a week, and shared whatever knowledge they had with the children. Cousin Ian, for example (he of the different-coloured eyes), taught them the basics of anatomy through taxidermy, including how to trap the animals themselves. Squeamishness was not an Addams trait; not for very long, anyway. Grandmama taught them what to do with the rest of the animal after the skin and bones had been removed. "Waste not, want not!" she said.
And her demonstrations were always tasty.
Grandmama and Morticia made sure the children were exposed to a variety of foods, and they learned to eat anything put before them without complaint, from haute cuisine to crispy-fried earthworms. (After Harry discovered his special ability, he did draw one line — he wouldn't eat anything he could talk to, which ruled out rattlesnake stew.)
The most boring lessons were etiquette and deportment, in which they learned how to use the correct silverware at a formal dinner, dance with maiden aunts, and such. Although they didn't know it, this was the sort of training upper-class children had received a century before. Addams children were expected to be able to move in every level of society. Both societies, for they were well aware of the Wizarding world as well as the Muggle one. The Family lived in the grey space between them. Addamses knew they were different (how many people had a cousin who resembled a giant stack of hair?). They knew they could trust Family, no matter what they looked like. They knew they could not trust outsiders, who were often cruel to people who were different. Loyalty to Family was drilled into Addams children from day one, and Harry, Wednesday and Pugsley were no exception.
They learned to maintain different "faces" for outsiders and for Family. This was relatively easy for Harry and Wednesday, both of whom learned to keep their faces almost emotionless, but less so for Pugsley, whose natural disposition was quite sunny. He eventually decided on a different method, developing a good-naturedly stupid look that went well with his height and muscular build, and made other children and adults underestimate him.
Their first real test came when Harry and Wednesday started kindergarten. It was unthinkable, of course, that they would go to public school. They went to a prestigious private school not far from home, where Pugsley had started the year before. Unfortunately, children are children no matter where they are, and private school children can be just as cruel, or more so, than public school kids to children who are 'different'.
In this case, it didn't take long before the little boys started making fun of Harry because he liked to be with Wednesday, even to the point of holding her hand when they walked through the halls of the school together. It didn't help that Harry's tastes in clothing were somewhat eclectic, showing what Morticia considered a deplorable liking for bright colours. Gomez, who had a tendency to wear purple suits and lime-green shirts himself, saw nothing wrong with his fashion choices. While Wednesday usually dressed in neat black dresses, Harry's trousers, socks, shirts and jumpers were often from colour groups with nothing in common. Then there was his hair, which stubbornly refused to lie down, but always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed.
For a week, Harry practiced his expressionless 'face', mostly ignoring his tormentors, but occasionally getting in a zinger or two. Then came the day they started picking on Wednesday.
"Ha! Harry's a sissy! He's got girl cooties!" yelled Neil Buchman when he spotted Harry and Wednesday quietly sitting under a tree at recess, reading books.
Neil's gang of four other boys gathered around, chanting "Harry is a sissy!" over and over again.
"Go away, Neil," said Harry.
"Hey Harry, you're ugly, and your mother dresses you funny!" Neil obviously thought this was supposed to put Harry in his place.
Harry cocked his head and gave Neil his best expressionless stare, ignoring the other boys.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Neil asked.
"I'm just trying to imagine you with a personality." Harry looked at him for a bit more, then shook his head. "Nah. Can't do it. Sorry."
"What did you just say?"
"Not the brightest crayon in the box, are we?" put in Wednesday.
"You shut up! I'm not talking to you!" Then Neil committed a grave error. He kicked dirt at Wednesday.
Harry and Wednesday glanced at each other. They slowly, deliberately closed their books and got to their feet.
"I wouldn't do that again," said Harry.
"Yeah, what are you gonna do about it, you weirdo? Twin weirdos, ha!"
Harry addressed Wednesday, while carefully keeping his eyes on Neil. "Okay, I forget. Am I the good twin or the evil one?"
"You won the coin flip this morning. You're the evil one," she said.
"Oh, good. Neil, go away. Don't make me kill you."
"You can't kill me. You can't do anything to me. But I can do this!" Neil made his second error. He pushed Wednesday.
Harry launched himself at Neil in a multi-coloured frenzy. Neil fell over, and the two boys rolled around on the ground trading punches. Fortunately, neither one of them was able to do much to hurt the other. The other boys started yelling and a couple of them jumped on Harry. Wednesday picked up a stick and started whacking the pile of boys with it. Her whacks weren't random, but were carefully placed to hit only Neil and not Harry. Pugsley, who had been over on the playground trying to launch a smaller child into space using a teeter-totter, gave a shout of glee, ran over and joined into the fray. The recess teacher blew her whistle, which everyone ignored, and ran over to stop the fight.
By this time, flashes of colour were coming from somewhere in the middle of the pile of boys. When the teacher managed to get the fight stopped, Neil had a bloody nose, Harry had a black eye, and all of the boys, including Pugsley, were wearing clothes in a garish mis-match of colours that made Harry's look normal. Wednesday's clothes were unchanged.
The teacher hustled all of the children into the administration office, the nurse gave Neil a wad of cotton and Harry an ice pack, and parents were summoned. Not all of the parents were easily reachable, of course, since most of them worked, and it was not surprising that Morticia and Gomez got their first. Harry, Pugsley and Wednesday were sitting on one side of the office, calmly reading their books. Five boys in varying states of disrepair sat on the other side of the room.
While the fight was easy enough to explain, the teachers were at a loss to explain the odd colouring of the other children's clothing.
"Oh, dear," said Morticia. "You mean they don't dress like that normally?"
"No, they do not dress like that normally. Your colour-blind nephew dresses like that, but they were all wearing perfectly normal jeans and t-shirts an hour ago!"
"Marvellous!" said Gomez. "This is wonderful! Tish, do you know what this means?"
"I certainly do, and we'll celebrate later. In the meantime, Ms Marlowe, would you mind if I used your phone for a moment? Thank you."
While Gomez was having the children go through a blow by blow description of the fight and the teachers were discouraging a re-enactment of the scuffle, Morticia made a quick call and less than five minutes later three official looking types marched in the office door, flashing badges proclaiming them to be from the Agency for the Management of Underage Magic. Five minutes after that, the boys' clothes were back to normal, despite Pugsley's request to keep his that way, and the Agency people were gone, leaving the students and teachers with no memory of their presence and having paused only long enough to tell Morticia that she should make an appointment for an interview at home later that evening.
Harry's first accidental magic was the cause for much rejoicing, and an impromptu party was held at the Addams home that night. The Agency representative showed up half way through and pulled Harry and his guardians out of the celebration to explain to Harry why he should be careful about doing magic where Muggles could see it. They also gave him a little red wand and a book with some basic cantrips in it, and told him to practice those at home, where no one else could see. Nothing was harmful, it would give him an idea of the basic practices of magic, and start building up his strength. "Magic is like a muscle, you know, the more you use it, the stronger it gets." Most importantly, it would make him less likely to do magic accidentally. When he had a little practice and was ready for formal magical education, he would be able to get a custom wand of his own, but in the meantime the training wand would do.
"Whoa, cool!" said Pugsley, as Harry did a colour-changing spell, on purpose this time. "I wish I could do that!"
"Maybe you can," said Harry. "Here, give it a try." He passed the wand over to Pugsley.
"Now don't be surprised if nothing…" the Agency man started to say, when Pugsley waved Harry's wand and a burst of red sparks shot out the end of it.
Morticia gasped, and Pugsley's eyes bulged. "I did it! I did magic too! Did you see that?!"
"Congratulations, my boy!" exclaimed Gomez. "You're first Addams wizard since, well, since him!" he said, pointing at Harry.
"May I try, too?" asked Wednesday.
"I think you'd better. If one child is magical, the siblings usually are, too." Pugsley passed the wand to Wednesday, who waved it several times to no effect before she managed to make a light shine at the end of the wand.
"That's what I thought. Congratulations. You're a witch." He gave Wednesday and Pugsley their own wands and spell books. "Ma'am. Sir. I don't envy you. Having one magical child is hard enough, but three at the same time?" He shook his head. "You're Squibs, right?"
"Most of the family are, yes."
"Do you have any fully trained witches or wizards available?"
"Not in the wanded specialties. Grandmama could have gone to Salem, but her parents sent her for a traditional Potions apprenticeship instead."
"Well, you might want to get a tutor for them, then. Somebody who can supervise them properly and reverse anything that needs to be reversed. In the meantime, here's my card; don't hesitate to call me during working hours, and the emergency service number is on the back. May I assume you'll be interested in sending them to one of the academies when they're a little older?"
"You assume correctly, sir!" said Gomez. "This is one of the best things to happen to this family in ages! Nothing but the best schools for our children! All three of them!" he said, pulling Harry into a hug. "You're our little good luck charm, Harry. Without you, we might never have found out about Pugsley and Wednesday!"
Harry beamed.
"Oh, I feel sure you'd have found out sooner or later," said the Agent dryly. "Magic will come out one way or another, after all. Let the children play with their wands for a year or two, get the hang of it. Make sure they're always supervised by an adult, and don't let them have their wands where Muggles might see them. If they stick with the spells in the books, they'll be quite safe, but sometimes little kids like to try to make up their own spells, and that can lead to trouble. Fortunately most children aren't strong enough to do much damage, even if they attempt a major curse. When they're about seven, you can have them tested for relative strength and any special abilities, you know the sort of thing. Most of the best academies start accepting students when they're about ten. That's when magic starts to stabilize and become reliable. I'll put you on the mailing list, you'll get applications at the right time." He wrote down the names and birthdates of all three children in his little notebook. "Now I'll leave you to your party. Congratulations again, all three of you." He solemnly shook hands with the children and left.
It was hours before the party wound down, and nothing in the ballroom was the colour it had started as by the time the children went to bed. All three of them slept clutching their new wands, happy and exhausted smiles on their faces.
There were no further incidents of accidental magic at school, although things were rather oddly coloured around the Addams home for some time, until the novelty wore off.
All in all, Harry's childhood was idyllic, even if it did have rather more explosions than most children's.
0o0o0o0o0
In comparison to Harry's life, Dumbledore's was anything but idyllic. It seemed everyone wanted some of his time.
Although the Death Eater trials were over, the Wizengamot met repeatedly, mostly to discuss matters of estates and successions, since so much damage had been done to the Great Families on both sides. Dumbledore's constant attention was required, as he needed to keep track of the alliances between the Light, Dark and Neutral families, and steer attention away from the empty Black and Potter seats. Only the knowledge that Harry Potter still lived, somewhere, kept the Malfoys from moving to acquire both seats and the fortunes that went with them.
The International Confederation of Wizards was in almost continuous session, trying to work out ways to prevent future Dark Lords from gaining international backing. Privately, Dumbledore knew this was a hopeless effort, due mainly to the inability of that august body to even decide what was Dark and what wasn't. The rise of a Dark Lord in one country was a legitimate change of regime in another. As Supreme Mugwump, it was his responsibility to keep the debate civil, or at least make sure no blood was shed and everybody got changed back to their regular shape at the end of the day.
The Board of Governors of Hogwarts met frequently, too. It had a number of new members, and they all wanted to get a feel for the job. Every one of them had ideas that would "improve" the running of the school. Dumbledore much preferred it when the Board wasn't quite so proactive, as they required far too much of his time for tours, explanations and negotiations. He hoped the new members would get bored in a year or two, and things could go back to normal, with the Board only meeting quarterly to go over the financial statements instead of thinking they actually did something.
The school itself took the majority of his time. His Deputy, Minerva McGonagall, helped out with the paperwork, but since she also taught classes, there was only so much time available for her to help him, and it seemed there were a surprising number of things only he could decide, from approving the lists of new books to be bought for the library to negotiating a settlement to the feud between the Kitchen House Elves and the Laundry House Elves. Merlin only knew what they were actually fighting about, he'd never been able to get a straight answer from them, but it popped up every few years and he wouldn't get any peace until it was settled.
This left remarkably little time for other things, especially since Madam Pomfrey, at his last physical, had informed him that a man his age shouldn't be using a Time Turner to double up days. She had actually attempted to take it away from him, but relented upon his promise to use it only for emergencies. Fortunately for him, she'd never actually defined what constituted an emergency, so he felt free to keep using it. So he was tired all the time; that was normal for a man his age, wasn't it? He was used to it by now. He'd catch up on his sleep when he retired … in fifty years or so.
One of the things that he had to jam into his limited free time was trying to get Harry back from the Addamses. It probably wouldn't do him much harm to stay there for a little while, which was the main reason he'd been willing to leave without the boy, but trying to make the arrangements while keeping the Ministry unaware of the proceedings was time-consuming. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Ministry, exactly, but … he didn't trust the Ministry. Minister Bagnold was a very capable woman, and understood that sometimes one had to do things that looked bad, but were for the greater good in the long run. Whoever followed her in the job, however, might not be as competent, nor as understanding.
The first thing he'd done was contact the American Anti-Hoodoo and Voodoo Squad to try to get the Addams property cleaned up. He assumed that once the Dark influence was removed, it would be easier to get them to release the child.
It took the Squad several months to get back to him, stating that it was impossible to do anything about the property since the Family had been there long enough that the situation was self-sustaining. The fact that the property was located on the edge of one of the oldest and strongest Wild Magic sinks in the United States didn't help matters. Any attempt to seal the excess magic at the Addams house could easily disrupt the tenuous balance between the Watchungs and the Pine Barrens, resulting in another spate of Jersey Devil sightings. The uproar still hadn't died down after the last batch.
Then he'd tried the Bureau of Magical Child Welfare in Boston. This was the agency charged with getting magical children out of potentially dangerous Muggle households and fostered with more appropriate families. Dumbledore thought that if the boy was removed from the Addams household, it would be easy enough at that point to introduce evidence about his relatives in England and have him sent home.
No such luck. The caseworkers, under Dumbledore's repeated urgings over the course of a year, made several inspection trips and found nothing dangerous or threatening about the child's home environment, except for the lack of smoke alarms in the home. This was rectified immediately by the boy's foster parents, and the case was closed, with a letter of thanks to Mr Dumbledore and a request that he not bother them any more.
His next step was to make appeals through the Muggle courts in the United States. While Mrs Figg had been quite correct that the records were sealed, a wizard could get into the files where a Squib couldn't. The problem was getting someone with the expertise to find the one set of files in all the massive rooms full of paper. Then the process had to be repeated in New Jersey. Then he had to get a Muggle solicitor to analyse everything and attempt to find a legitimate reason to break the guardianship and bring Harry back to the Dursleys.
Without the consent of Petunia Dursley, the solicitor said, it would be almost impossible to have the guardianship revoked. This led Dumbledore to contact Mrs Dursley and implore her to try to get Harry back. He even offered her considerable monetary inducement to do so, thinking that since she had been open to such influence before, she might be again. She proved remarkably stubborn, however, and refused to have any part in such a plan of action, even after some strong magical encouragement. In the end, he realised, it would take an Imperius to coerce her to do what he wanted, and he was not willing to risk Azkaban, even for this. He had to settle for Obliviating her to remove the memory of his visit, since she was quite agitated and threatening to report it, although she wasn't terribly clear on who she would report it to.
Therefore, although it ran against his personal standards, he instructed his solicitor to contact an attorney in New Jersey to try to crack the Addamses' guardianship of Harry Potter, forging Petunia Dursley's signature. He could always send in Arabella Figg under Polyjuice or a glamour if a personal appearance in court was needed.
He did not count on the resistance he received. Gomez Addams may not have won many of his cases, but when he was acting on behalf of his Family, he was a skilled and canny opponent. He strung the case out for months, even years, submitting briefs and affidavits so full of pettifoggery that it took Dumbledore's solicitors weeks to figure out what they said. Harry's fifth birthday had already passed when the case finally came to a hearing at which a personal appearance by "Petunia Dursley" could not be avoided. Carefully briefed, Arabella Figg, disguised as Petunia Dursley, and accompanied by a British solicitor, one 'Brian Albus', as well as the American lawyer, went to court, to be questioned by Gomez Addams himself.
"Mrs. Dursley, is this your signature on these documents granting custody of Harry Potter to us?"
"Yes," said Arabella, after carefully examining the documents.
"And is this also your signature on the petition submitted to nullify the transfer of guardianship and return Harry Potter to your custody?"
"Yes, it is."
"May I ask why you are attempting to regain custody of Harry Potter at this time?"
"Well, it's all there in the petition. When I originally gave him up, I was still grieving for my sister. Having Harry in my house all the time was just too hard — it reminded me of her too much — but I realized afterwards that it was a mistake. Never to see the sweet boy again — violating my sister's trust in me — I just had to try to get him back." She dabbed delicately at her eye with a kerchief.
"Your honour, I would like to call a witness at this time."
Dumbledore's lawyer tried to intervene. "Your honour, we agreed on the witness lists months ago! Mr. Addams can't introduce a new witness out of the blue!"
"I assure you, it's not a new witness. It's one who's been involved for a long time. I call Mrs. Petunia Dursley!"
A door opened at the back of the room to admit Petunia, dressed in her best lilac suit.
The judge looked at her over his glasses. "We seem to have an excess of Mrs. Dursleys. Can you prove this is her?"
"Absolutely, your honour. We have copies of her fingerprints and forensic analysis of her signature compared to the one in her passport and on the original custody documents, submitted here as Exhibits R and S. We're prepared to submit to polygraph testing and DNA analysis if necessary. I doubt my opponents are willing to do the same." He handed a bundle of papers to the judge and an identical set to Dumbledore's lawyer, who was beginning to sweat. "Your honour, I submit that someone in this case has been perpetrating a cruel deceit upon this court, submitting documents with fraudulent signatures and even hiring an actress to impersonate Mrs Dursley. I can only speculate as to their motivation, or what fate might have awaited an innocent boy if he fell into their hands!"
"Your honour, I believe I can explain everything to everyone's satisfaction," said 'Brian Albus', rising to his feet. He whisked his wand out of his sleeve. "Obliviate! Obliviate! Obliviate!" While the Muggles in the room were still reeling, he tapped the documents Gomez had handed him. "Portus!" He pressed them into Arabella Figg's hands and the two of them were gone, as if they had never been there.
There were repercussions, of course. All Dumbledore's Obliviation spells couldn't get rid of the multiple copies of the evidence, nor had he been aware that all the proceedings were being audio taped so transcripts could be made. The American AHVS, however, was notified of the use of massive amounts of magic in the Union County courthouse, and they were able to get rid of the pesky evidence and spent several hours working on perfecting the back stories to go with the memory charms. They were not pleased. It was fairly obvious to them what had happened, especially after they reversed the memory charm on Mr Addams and got the whole story about Harry's guardianship and Dumbledore's subsequent visit and attempts to meddle.
Shortly thereafter, Albus Dumbledore received an express owl from the head of the International Magical Relations Committee of the United States Magical Congress, informing him that the United States Magical Congress had now taken an interest in the matter as a result of his injudicious use of magic in a Muggle venue and his continuing interference in a custody matter in which he had no legal interest. If he did not wish the Congress to reveal all the evidence they had now collected and request an inquiry before the International Confederation of Wizards, which was likely to result in Dumbledore's removal from that august body, he was to cease meddling, immediately and forthwith, in any matters relating to Harry Potter and/or the Addams family. He was also to cease meddling with Petunia Dursley; for while the Congress had no direct jurisdiction in Britain, they were sure that a letter to the Ministry would result in a full Wizengamot investigation of the same.
It was blackmail, pure and simple, but there wasn't anything Dumbledore could do about it. If he didn't wish to lose two of his extremely influential positions and be subject to considerable personal embarrassment, not to mention admitting what he'd done with Harry, he had to back off and keep quiet.
The whole debacle had cost him several years, considerable cash outlay from his own pockets, and a valuable ally. Arabella Figg had given him a piece of her mind, would have resigned from the Order of the Phoenix if it had still existed to resign from, and stormed off to go back to her own house. The house on Wisteria Walk was put up for sale the next day, and no one in Little Whinging ever saw Mrs Figg again.
To top it all off, he received a letter, via the Muggle post drop set up for the parents of Muggle-born students, from Gomez Addams. It read, quite succinctly, "Strike two."
It was not a good year for Dumbledore. Not a good year at all.