Harry stared at the eagle owl perched on his windowsill. He knew this eagle owl, and for the life of him he couldn't fathom a reason why Draco Malfoy would be writing him directly. He must have spent an entire minute glaring at it suspiciously while it glared back.
Wanting to get on with his day, Harry relented and approached the bird. Noting sourly that Hedwig seemed completely nonplussed by the foreign owl, something his Hedwig would not be okay with, he took the letter and balked at the name on the envelope.
"Oh. That explains why you're here Swash." Harry said to Draco's owl.
Somehow he'd completely forgotten that Bellatrix was Draco's aunt. With her sane in this world, surely they were closer as well. Close enough for him to lend her his owl, at least. He deduced from this that she either lived with the Malfoys or visited them semi-regularly. He filed that information away for later as Swash flew away.
"Well, now the sum total of my packing includes you two and a letter." Harry said to Hedwig and Crookshanks. "Man, I sure do love not having a lot of crap to pack."
With the sun freshly risen his time at the leaky cauldron was at an end. Garrick had already agreed to let him move into his apprentice room above the store and it was a godsend in terms of saving money. Living somewhere rent free is always a great boon.
Pocketing the unopened letter, he picked up Hedwig and left his hotel room for the last time. Crookshanks followed in his wake as he passed through the Leaky Cauldron and meandered down Diagon Alley. Using the signet ring Garrick had given him to open the front door he entered the shop and made a beeline upstairs to the apprentice bedroom as quietly as he could.
The room was as spartan as he remembered, but the lack of a second bed was decidedly odd to him. In his time studying there back in 2000 the only reason Garrick had two beds in there was because Luna and him had to share the room. Of course, the spare bed went completely unused with Luna preferring to share his during their three months together. What a wonderful three months it had been. The longest relationship he'd ever had up until that point. Then he had to go and ruin it by calling it a relationship.
Where are we going? What do we call what we have? These were the questions he had asked Luna. She had answered them by laughing in his face.
Feeling sufficiently heartbroken and used he had quit his failed apprenticeship with Ollivander. Mostly because he just didn't have Luna's knack for wand lore and it showed in his lack of progress, but also because they had hit a roadblock in their research into the Eldar wand and twin phoenix core wands. Plus, he needed to get away from the woman who had turned him into a fuck boy only to then deny him the relationship he wanted.
It had taken a lot of time and a lot of flings to get over the heartbreak from that one. By the time Hermione intervened by telling him to stop being such a man whore he was already over it and was dating Daphne exclusively, which led to a whole host of new concerns by his best friend. In time Daphne would prove all of those concerns wrong, even if they didn't stay together either.
It had been a rather terse conversation. He never thought he'd hear the sentence "You can't get rid of heartache by drowning it with booze or burying it in every vagina in the nation." come out of Hermione Granger's mouth, and yet he had. And he would wind up repeating them to her whenever she got on his case after that. It was a instant classic in terms of Granger wisdom.
With Hedwig and Crookshanks comfortably situated in his new room, Harry finally went downstairs to begin the day. Standing behind the counter and watching the alley fill with morning light had been a great start to his days back when he worked here in his time. Nobody came in this early, but an early, relaxing start to the day was the best start to a day.
"Welp, let's see what Crazy Mccrazyface wants." Harry said to himself as he withdrew the letter from his breast pocket.
He ripped it open and out fell two Quidditch tickets and a letter. Disregarding the tickets he opened the letter to give it a read.
To Garrick Ollivander's Apprentice.
We did not exchange names during my visit to your shop, and that was mostly due to my rudeness. Allow me to remedy this mistake by finally introducing myself. My name is Bellatrix Black, and it was a pleasure meeting you.
I am writing this letter to you with an apology gift to show my sincerest gratitude. You showed incredible patience in both tolerating my sunny disposition and in situating me with a new wand so quickly. I hope to meet you again soon. Should you accept and use this gift I believe I shall.
I am still hoping you will arrange a time and day to help me repair my first wand.
Yours sincerely,
Bellatrix Black
PS: I asked my niece what a dominatrix was. I usually do not appreciate such crude humor, but I must admit the mental image of somebody chaining their disobedient wand to a bedpost and whipping it with a leather cat of nine tails is rather humorous indeed.
Niece? Was Draco Malfoy born female in this universe? That was a frightening thought. Unless of course Ballatrix was referring to Nymphadora, who seemed more likely to know what a dominatrix was. But the fact that the letter was sent with Draco's Eagle owl instead of the Tonks family owl suggested the former. The idea of Bellatrix being on good terms with both the Malfoys and the Tonks seemed unlikely. Then again he had no idea of Andromeda even married Ted and produced that wonderful metamorph and mother to his godson.
Now he was thinking of little Teddy again. Why was the slightest thought of his godson the thing that always brought down his mood?
"I never took you for a dueling buff." Ollivander said offhandedly as he walked past to unlock the front door. "Figured you were more into Quidditch. When did you have the time to get tickets for the preliminaries?"
Harry looked back down at the tickets and, sure enough, the symbol for the dueling league was plastered onto both. It consisted of two wands crossed in combat over two swords crossed in combat.
"You had me pegged correctly. Never been to watch a dueling tournament before in my life." Harry admitted. "These tickets came with a thank you note."
"From whom?" Garrick asked, his curiosity now obviously piqued.
"A nice lady who came in yesterday with a blockage in her wand. I got her a new spare and promised to set up an appointment to help her try and clear it." Harry explained, feigning ignorance as to her name. "Letter is signed Bellatrix Black."
"Ooooh, she's won a few championships. One of the best duelists in the women's league here in sunny England." Garrick explained, walking over.
Harry had zero difficulty believing that Bellatrix was a dueling champion. It was the idea that she wasn't fighting and killing in the war that boggled his mind.
"When is the match?" Garrick asked.
Harry turned the tickets back around to read the details.
"Today." Harry said before looking at his watch and comparing it to the time listed on the tickets. "In thirty minutes."
Garrick grabbed his coat from the hanger beside the counter.
"Well let's head on out then." Garrick insisted. "Business is slow on Wednesdays anyways. Especially this early."
Harry shrugged and followed him out the front door, locking it behind him. With a wave of his wand he conjured a small sign on the over the window with his chicken scratch declaring they were away. Intricate conjurations like this were better done with wands, he could never get the texture and lettering right wandlessly.
Busy watching hot babes beat the piss out of each other. Come back later.
Harry followed Garrick down the alley towards the nosy pair of judgmental Aurors. Apparating or flooing directly into or out of Diagon Alley was verboten, so they'd floo from the Leaky Cauldron.
"Where are we going?" Garrick asked as he reached for the pot of floo powder.
Harry checked the tickets again.
"Cork Quidditch stadium." Harry said.
"Ah. The Cork Warlocks are sponsoring the preliminaries this year, are they? Well I know who I'm cheering on this season." Garrick told him as he grabbed a fistful of floo.
"The Corkscrew." Ollivander called out only to vanish in a flash of green flames.
Harry recognized it as the name of the popular wizarding pub in Cork and followed suit. He landed on Irish soil seconds later, untangling himself from the heap on the ground he had become.
"Wow. Not a fan of floo travel are you?" Garrick said ss he helped Harry up.
"Not a fan of any kind of magical travel. Save broomstick." Harry admitted as he brushed himself off. "Long walk to the stadium?"
"Nope. Right up the street. Thirty minute walk tops." Garrick.
"Just side-along me." Harry insisted.
Garrick obliged and a few seconds later they were standing on the pier of an island halfway between Roches Point and Weaver's point. Roche's point lighthouse was on clear display and was almost in throwing distance. The only part of the island visible to Muggles was known as Harbour Rock on the north side. The rest of the island was a Quidditch pitch with no stands save the grassy hills surrounding it. All open air, picnic seating.
Harry had played here twice during his Quidditch career, both on sunny, breezy days. Thankfully the European Quidditch league played from late spring to early autumn, so they didn't have to deal with the frigid rain or snowstorms Cork Bay sometimes got. And apparently so did the British and Irish dueling leagues. Nobody liked dueling or flying with fifty kilometer per hour sleet and hail flying into their face.
"Well, let's go find our seats." Garrick said.
They walked up to the small gazebo that served as a gate. Which seemed rather pointless seeing as there were no fences or wards preventing people from just walking past them. Save the two conductors and wide-open view of the entire island that would have any freeloader spotted and promptly booted in half a second.
"Tickets please." The blonde conductor asked in a voice far deeper than his frail appearance would indicate.
Harry presented them to the conductors who promptly ripped both in half, handing the pair their stubs.
"Seats A5 and A6. Follow the white markings on the grass, should be just to the right of the entrance." The blonde man said boredly.
Harry and Garrick walked through the gazebo and onto the grassy field. The rings of the Quidditch pitch were far to the right and far to the left, with the "stands" surrounding it all the way to the lapping shore. Most of the free ground space was already taken up by people and their blankets. Many had even brought along picnic baskets. Harry was certain they were magically expanded to be larger on the inside than the outside and were probably full of food and booze.
"Here we are." Garrick announced when they reached a spot of grass with white lettering declaring them A5 and A6.
Harry conjured a thick, wool blanket over the two spots and got comfortable. The stands were sloped, like perfect hills surrounding the pitch so they could all see over each-other's heads towards the action. Harry had never seen a Quidditch pitch cordoned off into squares like this, although he supposed it wasn't that shocking of a change to be made to a Quidditch pitch compared to a magic hedge grove.
Each squared off section had folding chairs surrounding it and a judges desk where absolutely ancient witches and wizards sat talking. The regular folding chairs seated the many ladies intent on participating in the preliminaries here. Harry spotted the mess of curly black hair he attributed to Voldemort's right hand in the square directly in front of them. Clearly Bellatrix had picked these seats out specifically for them. That or she was entitled as a participant to invite two people to watch her and everybody else had blown her off. Harry could recognize a gift of last resort.
Their seats had them right behind two large men. They had the kind of body type of men who worked hard labor but didn't eat well or control their drink. The kind of muscular fat that made women swoon. Buff fat. They were buff fat.
"So, what exactly is the purpose of these preliminary matches?" Harry asked Garrick once they were both comfortable.
"Partly as tryout matches to judge who should be allowed into proper matches at all, but mostly for sportsmanship and strategy forming." Garrick explained. "These preliminary duels have none of the pressure or rewards of real duels, so the participants can have a more relaxed spar to better gague each-other to come up with training regiments and strategies for their real duels."
"Oh! So it's like a pre-season game? Has no bearing on later matchups or rankings, just good fun and warmup for the real deal?" Harry clarified.
"Exactimuno." Garrick said. "Also, keep an ear to the ground. Literally. The markings on the grass are speakers connected to our nearest dueling square, specifically the announcer."
No sooner did the words leave Garrick's mouth than did the announcer pipe up from the ground.
"Good morning loyalists and special guests of participants alike, In ring A today we have some fan favorites returning and some fresh blook vying for a chance to compete. On the docket today for contestants new to the scene includes recent Hogwarts graduate Alicia Spinnet..."
Harry blinked at the name and did a double take as the dark-skinned girl stood up from her folding chair in the pitch below. He hadn't recognized her, but he hadn't been looking for her either. She hadn't been a duelist in his world.
"Recent migrant from South Africa, Bathory Hendrix, no relation. Also trying her hand at dueling for the first time is Hogwarts professor and survivalist expert Elvira De Santiago." The announcer went on.
Harry sat up straighter to get a look at the women in question as they were announced. Each stood up to bow to each other and the judges as they were called.
Miss Hendrix was an even darker, and seemingly even younger woman than Alicia. She kept a clean shaven head and a bright orange scarf. Of course, he was more interested in this Hogwarts professor, whom he assumed was the latest person Ablus has suckered into the cursed Defense position. She looked nothing like the mistress of darkness. For one she was a golden-brown Hispanic woman instead of the pale white horror hostess. For another she was all muscle and lacked the cartoonishly overexaggerated cleavage that Cassandra Peterson boasted. Still, she was a handsome woman and was in no way ugly. Classic Tomboy look. Kind of reminded him of a dark skinned, more rugged Tonks. All this combined with her short, cropped hair and she looked like Elvira on opposite day.
Needless to say, Harry already liked her. Couldn't wait to see how she fought.
"For returning duelists we have two-time dueling champion Bellatrix Black. And while she may never have won a championship we also have head of the DMLE Amelia Bones."
Harry blinked again as the older redhead, whom he was thankful had not been assassinated in the last month as in his timeline, stood up and bowed. He guessed with her being the head of the DMLE she didn't see field work very often and had to keep her combat skills sharpened somehow. Dueling for sport seemed as good a way for her to do that as any.
It was the final of the six names in pit A that made harry blink the hardest.
"Finally, we have One-time champion Arianna Figg returning for her fifth season