Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
Enter Agatha Stone
By Ishtar
Chapter Six
Enter Agatha Stone
Lunch was a vast improvement over breakfast. Tonks had managed to smuggle in a full meal from the Leaky Cauldron, complete with a bottle of butterbeer, and sat with Harry while he ate. He told her about the potential Child Protective Services problem. And the situation with his school trunk. "That, at least, is not a problem," she reassured him. "We got into the house this morning, after the police left. Found your wand — it was under the bed. Arthur Weasley's got it for safekeeping. And I put a little Wizzywig Charm on your trunk. If and when you open it for the police, they'll see exactly what they would expect to see in a sixteen year-old boy's trunk. Schoolbooks, dirty socks, sticker for your favourite football team, girlie magazine hidden all the way at the bottom, you know. Very useful charm, that — we use it all the time. You might want to get Arthur to teach it to you."
"I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen Mr. Weasley yet. But I suppose he's at work now."
"No, I've been busy Wizzywigging myself," came Mr. Weasley's voice from the doorway. "How are you, Harry?"
"Very, very sore, sir, I … wow." Harry gaped at Mr. Weasley, transformed from vague-looking wizard in shabby robes to the very picture of the mid-level bureaucrat in precisely tailored pinstripe suit, shoes polished to a gleam, hair and moustache trimmed with military precision, and bulging briefcase. He even had the bowler hat. The only touch wrong was the lurid purple of his tie and pocket handkerchief. It clashed badly with his hair.
"What do you think? Arthur Weasley, Assistant Undersecretary to the Minister for Education, at your service. I have cards that say so, so it must be true."
"That's really impressive, sir. Though that tie is a bit over the top."
"Really?" Mr. Weasley looked down at his chest. "Ron gave it to me for my Muggle Disguise Kit when he was eight. I was glad to finally get a chance to use it."
"Well, that's perfect then, sir. Over the top ties are acceptable when they're gifts from children."
"I'm going to go over things fast, Harry. I suspect it won't be long before the Child Protective Services people get here — they can be remarkably efficient when they choose to be. Arthur Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, isn't going to get anywhere with them, but" and here his voice changed to a more pompous, self-important tone obviously modelled after Percy, "Arthur Weasley of the Ministry for Education probably will." He changed his voice back to normal. "You've been doing a good job of putting things in Muggle terms for them, so we'll just keep that up and tell as much of the truth as possible. I'm going to try to get them to assign us as your foster family. If that doesn't work, we'll have to try to 'kidnap' you or have you 'run away' from where they do assign you, but that would really cause difficulties for you later if and when you try to interact with the Muggle world, so we'll try to avoid it."
"You'll be my foster family, sir? I'll get to come live with you?"
"Yes, Harry."
"But … but won't that be dangerous? I mean, wherever I stay, Voldemort …"
"I've discussed that with my family. Everybody but Percy, anyway. What do you think took me so long to get here? We're all fairly high up on the list of You-Know-Who's enemies anyway, so we're really not taking on much additional risk. And you know we love you."
Harry broke. All the pain and frustration came to the surface, and he couldn't hold back the tears any more. Tonks whisked the tray full of dirty dishes out of the way and Mr. Weasley moved closer to the distraught boy to hold him as he cried. Harry held tightly to the older man with his one good arm, and Mr. Weasley, in turn, cradled him in his arms despite the mess Harry was making of his suit.
"Well, now, isn't this an affecting scene?" came a woman's voice from the doorway. Harry jumped, embarrassed at being caught in such a vulnerable position, and so did Mr. Weasley. They both looked towards the door, and Harry, at least, jumped again. The woman who filled the doorway reminded him so much of Dolores Umbridge that he almost screamed. She was short and wide, with the same broad face, wide mouth, and slightly bulging eyes that Umbridge had. This woman, however, was very, very black. Her hair was drawn back tightly into a bun on the back of her head, and instead of the incongruously feminine style of dress Umbridge had affected, she was dressed in a business suit of such sharpness that it put Mr. Weasley's current garb to shame. Her face also held none of the slackness that Umbridge's had had; rather, it was filled with strength and vitality. Her voice was rich and deep, like chocolate, easily her best feature. "You are Mr. Potter, I assume?" she said to Harry.
"Yes ma'am," Harry replied.
"And you are?" She advanced into the room and leveled a glare at Mr. Weasley.
"Arthur Weasley, Ministry of Education," said Mr. Weasley. He had recovered faster from the surprise than Harry had, and arose from where he was sitting on the bed. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced a gold card case. "My card."
Now that the wide woman was out of the doorway, Tonks took the luncheon tray and fled.
"Agatha Stone, Department of Child Protective Services. I'm the worker assigned to Mr. Potter's case. I assume from the touching scene I just witnessed that you are a friend of his?"
"Harry is a classmate of my son Ron. He's visited with us on occasion during school holidays."
"I'd say it's a little deeper than that," she said, looking meaningfully at his shoulder.
Only then did he seem to notice the mess Harry had made of his jacket front. He pulled the purple handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped ineffectively at it. "Well, we've come to care about the boy. And when I heard on the news about what had happened, I had to come and see how he was doing." This was the first Harry knew that the story had made the Muggle news. The Minister was going to be furious!
"I'd have to say he's doing better than I expected to find, Mr. Weasley. Possibly thanks to you. However, if you would wait outside while I talk with my client privately, I'd appreciate it."
Mr. Weasley nodded gravely and picked up his briefcase. Before he left, he clasped Harry on his good shoulder and winked at him out of Ms. Stone's sight.
Harry pulled up his sheets a little higher. He felt very apprehensive at being left alone with the woman who reminded him so of his former tormentor. Especially in his current extremely vulnerable, unclad state. Ms. Stone hitched a chair up next to his bed and opened her case, withdrawing a yellow file folder with his name on it. "Now then, Mr. Potter, I want you to understand that I am your advocate. My interest in this case is what is best for you. The police are dealing with the matter of the individual who attacked you. My job is to make sure you are properly taken care of. Are you clear on that?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I've been given a copy of the police notes on the assault, and on the interview you gave earlier today. I understand that you have been in the custody of your aunt and uncle from a very early age?"
"Since I was about a year old, I'm told."
"I don't suppose you'd know if there were any hearings held when they acquired custody?"
"No."
"Have there been visits from supervising social workers over the years? Any contact with Family Court that you can remember?"
"No."
Ms. Stone frowned ferociously, and Harry twisted the covers between his hands nervously. She noticed his reaction. "Don't worry, Harry — may I call you Harry? You can call me Agatha if you want. I'm not angry at you. But your case seems to have fallen completely between the cracks. Ordinarily, where an infant is orphaned and raised by relatives, there's some supervision by the Court to make sure everything goes well and the infant's needs are provided for. Unfortunately, sometimes relatives will just take in a child without filing the necessary paperwork. In many cases it all works out in the end, but in other cases — such as yours — it just leads to a mess, through no fault of the child's. It's my Department's business to try to make sure such matters are resolved to the ultimate benefit of the child."
"Now, in this case, we have an infant child — yourself — being taken in by maternal relatives — the Dursleys — and being raised in what appear to be severely abusive conditions. Had we known of the matter, CPS would have removed you from that environment years ago. As it is, we have the authority to assume custody of you immediately and place you with a suitable foster home where you can be taken care of appropriately until you are of age. Given your current age — you have just turned sixteen, I believe — your wishes will be taken into account as much as possible. I understand you are going to a private school for most of the year — some sort of legacy scholarship — and we have no wish to disturb that arrangement. So we're really only talking about the rest of this summer, next summer, and June and July of the following year until your eighteenth birthday. Plus Christmas and Easter holidays. I believe we can work something out that will be satisfactory. It may take us a few days to find a family for you, though. If you're ready to be released from hospital before we've located someone, you can be placed in an orphans' home temporarily. Yes, Harry?"
"Well, ma'am, if you don't mind, Mr. Weasley … he had invited me to stay with his family for the rest of the summer anyway — his son Ron is my best mate at school and I've stayed with them for holidays before — maybe I could stay there instead of the orphans' home?"
Agatha Stone's wide lips twitched. "I will speak to Mr. Weasley and see what can be arranged. I will admit, it's all much easier when other people do the work. We will, of course, have to inspect the Weasley home and interview the family to make sure the placement is appropriate. I'm sure you understand that we are not going to risk having you fall between the cracks again." What Harry understood was that there was going to be lots of Wizzywigging going on. Ms. Stone questioned him about his relationship with the Weasleys and eventually seemed satisfied. "Very well, Harry, I'll go and see if Mr. Weasley is still here. If not, I'll contact him at his office. I'm also going to speak with your doctors before I leave. I understand you'll be kept at least one more night for observation in any event, but it will be good to have an idea of how much longer you'll need to stay here. I understand your injuries, while painful, are not life threatening, and while you may require some physical therapy for a time, you should make a full recovery." She consulted her notes again. "I'll also need to have your belongings removed from your aunt and uncle's house. The police reports mentioned a school trunk, and some clothing in the wardrobe and a dresser. And a birdcage, unfortunately seriously damaged. Do you have a bird?"
"Mrs. Figg gave me some money once for the errands I do. I bought a pair of budgies. They died. But I kept the cage."
"I see." Harry could see her chalking the mysterious death of two unfortunate budgerigars up to the Dursleys' account. If they denied the existence of the birds, it would just confirm her opinion of the matter. Ms. Stone bundled her papers back into the file folder and left to see Mr. Weasley.
Harry had just laid back to rest a bit when he had more visitors, this time the police with a photographer. They had to wait for the nurses to contact the doctor to see if Harry's dressings could be removed long enough to take the required pictures, and during the interim Tonks, still disguised as a hospital aide, showed up with a pair of pyjama bottoms which would fit over Harry's bandages. With a proper pair of pants on, even if they were just hospital pyjama bottoms, Harry felt much more secure. The doctor came in and decided that Harry's dressings should be changed, so the police might as well take their pictures of the bruises while they were at it. As it turned out, Harry had to take his pants off anyway so the police could take pictures of all the parts of him which had been injured, but they chased all the nurses (and Tonks) out to spare him what embarrassment they could. Harry sat where they told him to sit and let them take pictures of him from whatever angles they wanted. The photographer, it turned out, had an extremely misplaced sense of humour, and asked Harry if he wanted prints of the pictures for his girlfriend. Harry thought of the picture Hermione had sent him, and said he didn't think she'd appreciate it. The police inspectors glared at the photographer until he shut up. Then the nurses had at him again, cleaning the crusted blood off his wounds, swabbing all his scrapes and scratches down with more of the brown-staining stuff, and rebandaging his knee and shoulder. By the time they were done, Ms. Stone was back with Mr. Weasley.
"Well, we have good news for you, Mr. Potter. The Weasley family has agreed to take you in, assuming of course that they pass our inspection process. I'm going to expedite an interview with them and go out personally to take a look at their home tomorrow, and I believe your doctor may release you the day after that. You'll be having some tests tomorrow to make sure there is no lasting brain injury or permanent damage to your shoulder or knee, and I should be back in time for evening visiting hours to let you know my decision. Now, there's still some of visiting hours left, so I'm going to let you have some more time with Mr. Weasley, since I so rudely interrupted your visit earlier, and I'll see you tomorrow evening. Good night, Harry." And she bustled out, giving Harry no chance to get a word in edgewise.
"How are you feeling, Harry?"
"Like I've just been through an eight hours' Quidditch practice."
"You look it. You've been through the wringer, no question of that."
"Mr. Weasley … Ms. Stone said she'd be doing an inspection of The Burrow?"
"That she did. Which means I've got my work cut out for me if we're going to pass it. And that means I'm going to have to leave in a little while to Floo back home and make plans. I doubt any of us are going to get much sleep tonight."
"I'm sorry to be such trouble to you."
"Nonsense, Harry. We do love you and would have taken you in long ago if Dumbledore hadn't insisted on the virtues of the blood protection for you. I don't think he really believed — none of us believed — that things would go as far as they did, and I, for one, will be a long time trying to make up for my error. You are a young man now, but you were a child. We should have protected you, and we signally failed in that responsibility. I wouldn't blame you for turning your back on the lot of us, and the fact that you are willing to stay with us is humbling."
"I don't blame you. Dumbledore, maybe … a little. Well, a lot. He knew … or should have known, what it was like. But the rest of you weren't responsible for me."
"Harry … when Fred and George have to pull bars off your bedroom window … and we knew and didn't follow up on it … when you need to be rescued four years running — and one of those years you rescued yourself with no help from us — when we know and do nothing, we all become responsible. We can make excuses for Dumbledore, and say that things were different when he was a child, and that he has no children of his own, but Molly and I have no excuse. We do have children, and though we really don't understand why some people treat their children as they do, we know that it can happen and that we have been, deliberately or not, blind to it. Ms. Stone has just given me a very, very long lecture on the subject, and left me feeling about the size of a garden gnome, especially since I had to pretend I didn't know — that I had no clue — because she would never allow you to come to us if she thought I knew and did nothing to protect you. Just because we're Wizards and live separate from the Muggle world, doesn't mean that we're exempt from doing what's right. In some ways, even with their endless laws and regulations, the Muggles are far in advance of us." He sighed heavily. "And now I'm going to have to leave you again. Somehow, we have to make the Burrow presentable as a Muggle household, and it's not going to be easy. But we'll manage. We have to. And you, young man, are going to rest and do everything your doctors and nurses say, and as soon as we get you out of here we'll get you to St. Mungo's and get you fixed up properly. Nothing wrong with you a good Healing Potion won't cure."
"Good night, Harry."
And Harry was left alone again, physically and mentally exhausted. Dinner was bland hospital food again, brought by somebody other than Tonks, and as soon as he was done, he lay back and fell instantly asleep.