Chapter Text
The first week back from Hogwarts, Harry gets kicked out of the house just before lunch so Aunt Petunia doesn’t have to feed him. He decides to take off down the street, since he knows Dudley will get out from lunch, meet up with Piers, and then try to hunt him down. The farther Harry is from Privet Drive, the less likely they’ll catch him.
He ends up almost all the way to the corner shop and he keeps going once he realizes it. He might not be able to get anything to eat, but there’s a bathroom and that’s got a free faucet to drink water out of. Harry’s parched and even bathroom water at a corner shop sounds good right about now.
Slipping inside, he gave a little sigh at the cooler temperatures indoors and made his way through the aisles to the bathroom. There are a couple of other teenagers there, older than him, wearing dark shirts and picking out various snacks, talking amongst themselves. Harry is in the aisle next over from theirs when he hears one of them say, “I’m telling you the shield spell doesn’t work like that, mate. It isn’t concentration. Once you cast it, it stays up until it gets used.”
“Don’t bother arguing, mate,” said another one, “Adam’s our wizard for a reason.”
Their voices are low enough that Harry can hear them, but he doubts anyone else can. The idea that there are other wizards here in Surrey sounds unbelievable, but then again…Dumbledore did tell him he had to stay at his relative’s house because the wards would protect him. And if they’re not there to protect Harry against bad wizards, then who would they protect him from?
Curious, Harry walked quietly down the end of the aisle and then turned the corner. He peeked around a bag of crisps to listen to them talking some more.
“So what’s the plan when we get into the tower?” the tallest boy asks his friends, “I don’t see Dan just letting us walk right up to the door.”
“We could if we had a halfway decent face,” one of the others said with a glance to the third. This one sounds like the one talking about the shield spell—this must be the wizard, Adam.
The third one rolled his eyes. He grabbed a bag of crisps and turned away. He was the one who spotted Harry spying on them. “Hey kid, what are you staring at?”
Harry ducked back, heart beating rabbit-quick in his chest. Should he run? What if they were out to get him?
But what if they weren’t? What if they were wizards like him—students at Hogwarts—
“If you’re going to sneak around, you should crouch a little lower, mate,” said the boy with the crisps. He eyed Harry a bit, squinting, and then said, “Aren’t you that Potter boy?”
Harry shook his head, shoulders rising up. He should just run off—
“He looks like ‘im,” said Adam, “I didn’t know he was so little.”
Harry scowled up at them. “S’not my fault,” he muttered, “‘m only twelve.”
Adam jerked a thumb at their third member, the tallest of their group, and said, “Yeah? Well Craigh here was twice as tall as you at twelve. You look like a scarecrow, mate.”
Craigh frowned the hardest of the three. “You had any lunch yet, kid?”
Harry shook his head.
“You got any money to get anything?”
Another head shake.
The three teenagers shared a look. Then Craigh reached over and grabbed a couple more things off the shelf. He shoved them into Harry’s arms and said, “C’mon squirt, you’re with us now.”
“Craigh,” complained the first one, “You can’t be serious.”
Harry stumbled a little as he was jostled forward, chivvied by Craigh and Adam, who both ignored their friend’s complaints. He gave up with a loud sigh once they reached the counter.
To Harry’s stunned surprise, Craigh bought the food he’d shoved at Harry and, when it was put into a bag, he handed that bag to Harry. The other two made their purchases and, though Harry had no reason to loiter now that he’d been given food, he didn’t leave.
As the teenagers headed out and down the street together, Harry followed at a distance. He knew they knew he was there because the third one said loudly to his friends, “This is what happens when you feed strays, you know. They follow you home.”
“Good,” Craigh said, “He can eat that god-awful shepherd's pie mum keeps trying to feed us.”
“You’ll poison him with your mum’s cooking,” Adam said with a snicker.
“Nah, it’s not toxic, just dense as fuck. It’s like chewing concrete mix.”
“Oh, so she’s gotten into masonry. Good for her,” the third one said.
They laughed together as they walked.
Harry followed them the whole way.
Down in the basement with a bowl full of re-heated shepherd’s pie and a tall glass of milk, Harry realizes he’s made a mistake. These boys aren’t wizards at all.
They’re just muggles who are pretending to be wizards.
He could leave, he supposes, as he watches Adam pull out a leather bound binder and spread it open. There are all sorts of notes scrawled on the pages and bits of colored tabs sticking out—it looks a lot like Hermione’s planners do at the end of the semester. Along with that, he has a bag of dice that he dumps into a wooden tray and sorts.
Harry peers at them curiously, chewing doggedly through the shepherd’s pie. It is pretty dense. He thinks Craigh’s mum put too much flour in the gravy—he’s made that mistake before too.
Once Adam arranges all his things out, and all the other boys have done the same, including Stan, who he’d learned the name of on the walk here, it looks like things are about to get interesting.
Jimmy, the oldest boy by a couple of years, has a cardboard wall set up between him and the other players. The outside of it declares him the Dungeon Master and has a pretty awesome drawing of a dragon on it blowing fire on a knight in armor. Jimmy grabs something and there’s a clattering sound. He chuckles to himself and makes a few notes.
Stan swears under his breath, shuffling through his own papers.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Craigh said, “He’s just psyching you out.”
“Am I?” Jimmy asked as he rolled some more dice. “Oh, interesting.” He said and then made another note on his unseen papers.
The boys share a look. Harry wants to peer around the wall so much, but he stays put and eats some more. This is the best food he’s had since he left Hogwarts. He’s not going to do anything to get kicked out early, even if these aren’t wizards.
It’s not like he told them he was a wizard, anyway.
Finally, Jimmy clears his throat and gets everyone’s attention. He leans forward a bit as he said, “Last we left our intrepid heroes, they were making the long climb up the sweeping Spire Mountain range to see the Warlock’s Spire for themselves. They had stopped at a mountain village to gather supplies and a guide and currently, the guide is leading them along a winding, shale-covered pathway northward. The winds are strong and the sun is high in the sky above them. Tell me what each of your characters are doing while traveling, starting with you, Clorthak.”
Stan nodded, “I know the Spire is said to be the tallest point of the range, can I see it from where we are?”
“Give me a perception check.”
Stan picked up a die and rolled it. “Fifteen.”
“You can see it in the distance. You’re not sure exactly how far it is, though. You remember that it was said to be built tall enough to scrape the sky so it could be close, it could be far,” Jimmy told him, “Anything else?”
“I’ll just keep an eye out for any falling rocks nearby, then. Though I wan to check every now and then to make sure we can still see the Spire.”
Jimmy nodded. “All right. Onto you, Sasha?”
Craigh rubbed his chin. “Does our guide look too busy to talk?”
“Your guide his humming a little ditty as he leads the way,” Jimmy said.
“I’d like to pull up closer to him and talk to him about the area a bit,” Craigh said.
“Sure,” Jimmy said, “He notices you coming up and nods to you in greeting.” Here, he took on a strange voice, partially closing one eye and making the other one wider while he scrunched up the side of his face. “Ah, lassie, ye be careful of the edge now, don’t step too quick.”
“I won’t,” Craigh replied in a somewhat effeminate voice. Stan snickered but stopped when Craigh shot him a look. “I was just wondering what your last trip through the area was like. Have any good stories for me?”
“Give me some persuasion, with advantage,” Jimmy said.
Craigh rolled his dice and said, “Eighteen.”
“Oh, nice,” Adam said quietly.
“Why, have I got a story for you,” Jimmy said in the character’s voice again. “Normally when I travel out this way it’s spring or summer. You never want to head out this route during the fall or winter. It gets too blasted cold and if the snow don’t get you the frost wolves will. They come crawling up and down the path as soon as midwinter hits.
“Last year was unusually warm in late winter, however. So we were on up this way to break through the snow crust and try to push through. See if we could get four shipments through instead of three, and wouldn’t you know it, my cousin Earl he stumbled his way right into a nest of the little buggers!
“Them little things had thawed out mighty fierce with the sun and weren’t no bigger than one of the shepherd's dogs. He was able to chase them off with his companions, but they caught one up, the smallest one they saw, and carried it with them. They nursed it along and kept it at the camp the whole trip, swearing up and down and sideways that they’d tamed the blasted thing.
“Of course, once they headed down the ridge and the weather turned, he woke up one morning and found nothing left of it but the collar they’d put on it and a blue jewel in a puddle of water. Damn thing thawed overnight!”
“What did you end up doing with the blue jewel?”
“Oh Earl and his mate Benji had a big row about it, but they ended up selling it down in the port for a pretty penny. They split the money down the middle. Earl went and bought his lady-wife some finery with it but Benji spent his all down in the port for a new ‘orse!” Jimmy laughed, “Damn thing broke its leg on the trip back and he had to put ‘er down. What a shame!”
He then shook off the character and said, “Hasher continues to regale you with stories like that for as long as you’ll listen.”
“I’ll listen for a while,” Craigh said.
“And finally you, Rotgar?”
Adam straightened. He stroked an imaginary beard thoughtfully. “While my companions keep an eye on our nearby location, I’ll send Tilly out to fly overhead and see if she can let me see our path. Ideally, I’d like to look for any unusual structures or creatures.”
“You let loose Tilly with a sweep of your arm,” Jimmy said, “Roll me her perception?”
Adam did. Harry leaned over to watch as he picked up an almost round die and rolled it. It landed on a nineteen. “Twenty-five,” he said.
Harry frowned, “But it said nineteen.”
Adam pointed to one of the sheets of paper he had in front of him. There was a drawing of a bird on it and the name Tilly at the top. “See here, she’s got a plus six to her perception.”
“Oh,” Harry sat back, feeling chagrined.
“As Tilly spirals out from your location, you don’t see anything unusual. Just lots of stone, a few trees and ice caps. There’s more ice the further up she flies, but even she can’t go past the tops of these mountains. The winds are too cold and thin,” Jimmy said. “How long are you keeping her out?”
“At least three hours,” Adam said.
“Make sure you mark the incense use on your inventory,” Jimmy said with a nod. He then went on to describe more of what they saw and did, which was mostly about their rocky path. After a few rounds of perception checks from Tilly and Clorthak, Jimmy said, “Tilly catches sight of a shadow on the stone that isn’t her own shadow. After just a second, three figures appear before her, gliding down the side of the mountain with their wings tucked close to dive. They’re streaks of color, but with her keen eyes she makes out dark wings and red lumps where their heads are. These are birds she’s never seen before, but you have Rotgar.”
Jimmy stood up and on the grid board in the center of the table, he put down four figures along with four horses. Then he put down three winged creatures facing them.
“Harpies!” Adam hissed.
“Ah Jimmy, not in front of the kid!”
“If he hasn’t seen a pair of tits yet then bully for him,” Jimmy said as he put down the last figure. “Besides, harpy tits are good for growing boys,” he winked at Harry and then gestured for him to come closer as he sat down.
Nervously, Harry scooted over. He peeked behind the board and saw, to his surprise, just a handful of papers, a notebook and a bunch of dice. So. Many. Dice.
“Do you want to play, kid?” Jimmy asked.
“Me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, you. Want to be a harpy?”
“Uh. What do I do?”
“Well, harpies like to kill and eat people,” Jimmy said. He reached down beneath the table, pulled out a book and flipped to a page. Then he put it in front of Harry and said, “Here’s their stats. Down here are their attacks. I’ll let you be the black haired Harpy, okay?” He put aside some dice. “You’ll roll these when you attack.”
“Hey! Don’t turn him into a mini-DM!” Adam argued. “He’s one of us!”
“Well, until he’s got a character sheet, he’s one of mine,” Jimmy said. “You got this, kid?”
Harry scrunched up his face. “My name is Harry.”
Jimmy grinned, ruffled his hair, and then said, “Yeah, you got this. Now everyone, roll initiative.”