Thank you to my new Patrons: mkh, Secret Mage, TumultyPride, Zow, Aagkard, Max Turry, Brunhild41, Daniel Hernandez, LNisio, JimboTheEngineer, Heisenberg, Cooper Roark, Highlord, Noel Malagon, Joao Ferreira, Jai Aery, Blake, COle369
-/-
While Harry had stayed at the Christmas party a bit longer, primarily to talk to James Potter for the few minutes that the busy man could spare, mostly to confirm what Snape had said, obviously nothing could be quite as interesting as the conversation that he'd had with the sallow-faced Potions Master.
He hadn't learned anything particularly new. After all, Snape had mostly informed him that their little detective club hadn't gotten very far either. The only somewhat useful thing he'd learned was that they'd apparently tested the DNA matching of the school and that the culprit was now more likely than ever someone who had not been attending Hogwarts at the time.
Of course, this increased the list of suspects rather than reducing it, which wasn't very helpful.
Nevertheless, Harry penned a letter to Skeeter to inform her of the new developments. He included everything that he'd heard, such as the clues that the marauders plus Snape had pursued, and mentioned the names Rosier and Mulciber as being those to whom Snape had referred as the usual suspects.
After sending that particular letter off, the only thing left was the letter that Snape had given to him. Harry had already noticed, upon first touching it, that it was a Portkey.
Opening it revealed why exactly it was one.
It was an invitation to a New Year's Gala in Munich on the 31st. The event was open to all curious, accomplished, and ambitious wizards and witches of less-than-stellar heritage with an invitation.
This was actually the thing that Harry had been curious about for a while. Obviously, the pure-bloods had their little groups. But why had the muggleborns and the half-bloods of Britain never founded their own society where they could exchange help and information? Had they tried and been suppressed, or was Britain simply that bad that everyone left at the closest opportunity?
Harry didn't particularly know why Snape had given this invitation to what was essentially a minor before realising that the conversation they'd had previously had probably made the man forget that, technically, Harry was underage.
To be fair, he didn't look that young anymore, considering that intense exercise had burned away most of his excess fat while also ensuring optimal growth conditions. Under the correct light, he was at the stage where someone might very well mistake him for being two years older than he was.
The invitation intrigued him, and with the teleportation techniques he'd been practising with Dobby, he wasn't truly afraid of anything that could happen.
The only thing that made him hesitate was the pendant that he'd seen Snape wearing, Grindelwald's symbol, or, if Snape was more into the occult, the symbol of the deathly hallows.
After asking James Potter about it, the man had assured him that Snape was of the right sort, so he didn't fear anything from that angle, but still, the whole thing was slightly suspicious.
However, he could decide if he wanted to go later. Right now, his first priority was getting home.
He'd been gone for nearly three months now and was missing his family.
"You alright, Harry?" Cedric, who was seated across from him in their train compartment, asked.
The red-haired boy slowly nodded his head as if awakening from a daydream. "Yeah, just thinking, another year gone, huh?" he wondered aloud.
"The school year isn't over yet, mate," the brown-haired boy corrected him.
"I meant the calendar year," Harry replied with a roll of his eyes. "Unlike some nerds, I don't count the school year as the natural stage of progression."
Cedric glared at him with a shocked face before pointing at himself. "Me, nerd?" he whispered.
"It didn't feel that long to me," Penny said from next to Harry, where she was reading the Quibbler.
"It will speed up in the future," Harry muttered. If you took everything cumulatively, he was almost reaching his fourth decade of being alive. These days, it felt that if he hadn't done anything noteworthy or new in any given week, the seven-day period passed with a blink of an eye. He opened his eyes on Monday and blinked; it was already Sunday. That was the thing with one's perception of time; it was relative to one's lived state. Back when he'd been a teenager, every day had dragged. He'd read somewhere that it was at the age of 20 that one experienced half of one's life in terms of relative time.
This made the whole being stuck in school and not being allowed to do literally anything fun until the age of 18 even more asinine. No drinking, no driving, no driving drunk, no sex, no drugs and most definitely no independent travel. They really did live in a fascist state; it was just that the oppressed minority were the kids who couldn't fight back.
His friends, who had yet to experience the unrelenting march of time straight to the grave, gave him sceptical looks, at which he could only roll his eyes.
They'd see. In a decade or so, they'd be just like him, wondering where the entirety of October had gone. Other than that Halloween incident, he had no memories of that month. He'd gotten to school in September and started looking forward to Christmas in November; in between, that was just an obscure haze with the occasional flash.
Was his time at Hogwarts starting to drag? You wouldn't think so generally, but you had to admit that he attended the same classes, practised the same skills, and hung out with mostly the same people. The only things that changed were the addition of Neville, Harley, and Hermione into his duelling group and James Potter being exchanged for Quirrell.
"I should start taking weekends off," he randomly decided. With Dobby's help, he could leave behind the sometimes dreary castle and go to the cinema. An art gallery. Depending on the house-elf's range, he could even go to the seaside. This was what magic was all about. Convenience, fun, adventure. He respected the institution, but thinking back on it, in his last life, he'd died right before finishing his bachelor's, only to be reborn and go straight back into the school system. Wasn't that basically a form of torture?
"Weekends off?" Cedric asked in a confused tone, his hand slipping to his waist.
A scramble passed through the compartment before Harry found himself staring up at two wands pointed at him from two different directions.
"Who are you, and what have you done with Harry"? Penny hissed into his ear, and her wand bit into his torso.
-/-
"Harry," Petunia exclaimed when she saw the redhead dragging a suitcase out of that false pillar at 9 ¾.
"Hey, Mom," Harry said with some surprise. It was usually Vernon who did the driving in the family, so he hadn't expected Petunia to be the one picking him up.
This wasn't because of anything sexist but simply because, well, Harry and Vernon had started fixing up cars years ago, but only one of them had a driving license. Through that, the cars that the Dursleys had used over the years had somewhat become Vernon's babies.
"You're surprised it's me, huh?" Petunia teased with a hand on her hip. She was wearing washed-out jeans and a puffy white jacket.
"You know how Dad gets with his toys," Harry said with a roll of his eyes.
"Well, it's those toys that are the reason he couldn't make it," his aunt said as she helped him put his leather trunk into the backseat of the car.
The two of them went to occupy the two front seats, three guesses as to who was driving… two of them didn't count.
"What do you mean? Is he fixing something up on a deadline?" Harry asked curiously as they peeled out of the parking spaces available next to the train station, only to get stuck in a traffic jam immediately. It would probably take them at least an hour and a half to get home. He shuddered at the thought that the traffic situation would only become worse and worse in the future as London's population grew.
"He's at a job interview, actually," Petunia said pleasantly.
"What?" Harry asked with surprise. His uncle had worked at the same drill company since he'd been born.
"It's the cars," Petunia explained as they waited behind a red light. "The two of you repaired, upgraded and sold off dozens of them before you went to… Hogwarts. Vernon has been putting Dudley to work ever since you left. I guess someone finally noticed who has been putting all those antiques back on the market." She sniffed.
"Unfortunately, it was the Spanish," she sighed. "We got a call from a car museum in Barcelona."
"Catalonia," Harry corrected absent-mindedly when his aunt mentioned that it was the South-East part of Spain, calling his uncle.
"Bless you," Petunia said. "Anyway, apparently, they want your uncle to go over there and fix up antiques for them. They want to make it possible to drive the cars for a special fee, and he came recommended by one of your former clients."
Harry sat there in the passenger seat with a confused look on his face.
The Dursleys… in Barcelona?
Was this a crossover episode?
He knew them as his family now, but they really weren't the type of people who could survive anywhere other than England. Hell, they probably couldn't even manage some parts of England, for that matter. For example, forget about the northern parts.
"So," he started. "He's considering it. We're considering it?" he asked, confused.
"Well," Petunia said slowly. "The salary is much higher than what he gets at Gunnings. There, he's only a salesman. In Barcelona, he'd be a specialised worker. The museum would also do repairs and upkeep for car enthusiasts with difficult or antique models."
"If the salary is higher, then it's much higher. Spain's economy isn't nearly as strong as ours, so their living costs are non-existent in comparison. If they paid twice as much as Gunnings, in effect, it would turn out to be worth four times as much," Harry mused idly.
Additionally, while this wasn't a worry right now, in 25 years, Britain would exit the European Union and then spend a few years nuking its own economy, education system, public infrastructure and social services. By then, Dudley would be 37 or something, probably with kids on his own. He'd likely appreciate his kids having an EU passport.
But, "Most likely, Dudley will be going to Eton, though. It's hardly something to throw away," he mused.
Petunia shrugged. "It's a boarding school, just like yours. Is there that much difference between picking him up at the airport than it is from the train station?" she asked.
Harry sweatdropped. His own supernatural maturity seemed to have given the Dursleys a bit of a wrong impression of how independent children should be.
"That's a lot to take in," he eventually said. He thought of the clearing that he had in the forest outside Surrey and of the magical immigration requirements of moving to another country, of which he knew nothing.
But, well, now he had Dobby. He hadn't quite tested the guys' range yet, but hadn't he at some point taken Harry and his troupe from England to France? Barcelona was quite a bit further away, but maybe that was something that could be worked on.
"Nothing is set in stone yet. I just wanted to explain why your uncle won't be home for a bit more," Petunia said.
"Barcelona is a beautiful city," Harry mused. And, owning property there, which was still affordable because it hadn't experienced a tourism boom yet, would be quite a good investment.
"It's certainly more exciting than Surrey, but considering we live an hour and a half away from London, it's not that much of a draw," his aunt sniffed. "And I really don't know about the food. Do they even sell gravy, you think?"
Harry laughed. Spanish food, if anything, didn't need gravy.
He paused. Maybe a move there wouldn't be good for his uncle's cholesterol.
"Learning Spanish as well," Petunia tutted.
"Catalan," Harry idly corrected.
"Bless you."
-/-
AN: Love you guys, for the non-Europeans not laughing at the Catalonia joke, I can assure you it was very unfunny. Anyway, a chill chapter after that last big dialogue pay-off. Next extremely high-stakes dialogue happens in 5 chapters if anyone wants to support me on Patreon to read ahead on what is quickly becoming a theater play of a fanfiction :P