Work Text:
An often overlooked fact of the Wizarding World is that - in Britain, especially - the majority of Wixen seek spouses within a fairly small community. Even those who are not particularly hung up on ‘blood purity’ tend to find a partner from a very limited pool. To one degree or another, most Wixen are related.
This Matters.
Harry found the place when he was six, when Dudley’s gang had started getting more violent in ‘Harry Hunting’ than just shoving him to the ground and laughing as they ran away. They’d caught up with him at the edge of the park, near a stand of old oak trees that formed a border between the park and a major road that curved around the corner of the park, separating Little Whinging from Greater Whinging.
This time, they kicked him several times and Dudley threw a stick at him before they walked off laughing. Harry was severely bruised and bleeding from a long, shallow cut left by the stick - not badly, but it hurt. Once he was certain his tormentors were gone, Harry heaved himself up and staggered over to sit on a nearby rock to take stock of himself. He swiped the tears from his eyes and wiped the blood dripping down his arm away to see how bad the wound was - a bit of cleaning and it would be fine, he shouldn't even need to try and swipe a band-aid when cleaning the bathroom - and wiped his hand off on the stone he was sitting on.
The mostly-quiescent Ward Stone pulsed briefly, sensing the connection Harry had (through a many-greats ancestor) to the Family that set the stone - a family that had long since died out in the main line - and accepted him. All of a sudden, Harry became aware that the old oaks formed more than a thin line of trees between the park and safety fence along the road. It was not a large copse, as far as forests go, but took up about twice the space of the adjacent playpark.
Not wanting to return to #4 just yet, and not wanting to be out on the street where Dudley’s gang might see him again (or be waiting to ambush him as they sometimes did), Harry wandered deeper into the trees, and soon came upon a very old one-room house. Hazelnut hedges long gone wild crowded around the circular building, whose door posts and lintel were made of massive blocks of stone, set into a matrix of whitewashed plaster. More tall slabs of stone flanked the narrow windows standing almost as tall as the door itself at intervals around the structure. The roof was partially collapsed and piles of leaves were heaped at irregular intervals around the walls. The massive oaks provided what protection there was to be found from the elements.
Harry entered the building, cautiously. There was a sense of something waiting. Not an ambush, not a danger, necessarily, but… waiting with bated breath and leashed anticipation. (Harry did not yet know that magic is real. Nor did he know that old places of power, used for generations, can develop a sort of awareness. Not sapience, exactly, but an … intelligence of their own.) The decades-long buildup of debris hid the runes carved deeply into the floor, blocking their faint glow at the entrance of this possible Heir - one who willingly (if ignorantly) offered blood as he requested (wished for) Sanctuary. The rough-laid stone caught at his feet; the stones flanking the windows protruded into the single room, creating small alcoves.
(If Harry knew more of his heritage, he might recognize it for what it is - a Henge. A Ritual space bounded by Standing Stones. An Anchor for Deep Magics and Olde Powers. (Harry is fortunate that the Powers called in this space were benign, and the trees that surround it were steeped in protection and preservation magics. They will not seek to corrupt him as blood-seeking, blood-bound sacrificial circles might.)
But Harry did not know. He could only feel the anticipatory weight in the air hinting at secrets to be discovered by an intrepid explorer, the draw of the unknown that has pulled humanity to expand their horizons, make reality of imagination, and attempt to plumb the depths of oceans and caverns and space. Instinctively, perhaps - or perhaps just being a curious, tactile child - Harry walked the perimeter of the room, touching the stones worn smooth by many other hands over their centuries of use. Unwittingly, he offered his blood with the gesture, claiming this place as his own.
(Harry’s mother’s blood was shed in his defense and a manipulative old man sought to make use of that in the name of protecting him. Harry’s own blood and genuine need for protection have won him free, for the protections laid by his mother in his blood have laid the pattern for the Olde Magic he has inadvertently awakened. Harry will return to #4 when he grows hungry only because he does not know any better.)
He will return, again and again, to this, his Sanctuary. He will find the symbols carved deeply into living stone when he begins to clean the room and prune the overgrown hedge with the shears he sneaks out of his relatives’ garden shed. He will learn to listen to the magic whispering how best to improve and shape his new domain.
When Harry is eleven, he will ask different questions of the friendly giant who finds him on a barren wave-swept rock to tell him of magic than he might have otherwise.
When the manipulative old man tells him he must return, he will simply move into his Sanctuary. It will welcome him and rejoice in the strength of its Heir.
Uncaged, his Familiar will be able to hunt at her will, and bring tidings that would otherwise have been drawn astray by a misguided intention to help.
There are wild strawberry, chickweed, dandelion, purslane and other edible wild plants to forage in the copse, and no one to stop him from sending a letter to Gringotts to ask how to get money from his account for groceries and new clothes - a drop of blood placed on the paper enough of an identifier, though Harry will have no idea why he does it, only that it feels like the right thing to do.
Harry will have an excellent summer, growing ever more intimately familiar with the magic that surrounds him, undisturbed by a very confused House Elf.
His second year will be filled with trials and terrors, but he has a safe place to return when the Old Man once again tells him he cannot stay in the world he is expected to save. Once again, he will have a lovely summer, the thrum of magic cradling him, soothing him, healing him, claiming him.
Inspired by the marks carved into his refuge, and increasingly aware of the power caught in and guided by them, Harry will take Runes in his third year, and begin to comprehend what the magic of the Henge has been whispering to him, what he'd been grasping at on an instinctive level for years. His understanding will deepen with further study and summers spent immersed in the Deep Magicks of the Henge.