Harry Potter and the Tuath Dé - 3
DarkPhoenixLady
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Harry Potter and the Tuath Dé – 3
A month after Harry's disappearance, Petunia and Vernon are finally able to return to England with Dudley. Grunning's has been really good and allowed them time to grieve, after a farmer found 'his' body, a week after his disappearance, while digging out a badger set. As the set was uninhabited, the police turn a blind eye to just why the farmer was digging it out. The autopsy report says that he probably crawled into the set when he couldn't find his way home and went to sleep. He had frostbite in all of his extremities, though they hadn't had time to discolour before he finally passed away.
Despite crying herself to sleep in Vernon's arms for a week after the discovery, Petunia's health quickly improves as she's able to sleep more regularly, and she no longer gets random bouts of weakness. By the time of the funeral in the local chapel, even Vernon sheds a tear for his lost nephew.
A visit to this village would become a yearly occurrence for the family in the future. Even after Grunning's opens up a Canadian branch in a few years time, and promotes Vernon to branch manager. With Petunia able to look after Dudley more effectively, he grows up to be a very different person than he could have otherwise.
Every year she would host a feast at her home for Samhain, where she would prepare historically accurate dishes, seating, and entertainment. This was always well attended, as it was open to the whole village. Even though spaces were, by necessity, limited. She was also active in the local re-enactment scene, and her most ardent student is her son, who she home-schools.
Much to the consternation of the local churches, the Danann's are very much not Christian, not even giving the nod towards the religion that most others do. Instead, Morgana would hold classes on the ancient religions of the Celtic people, and even religious ceremonies. All based on archeological records that she either found personally through digs that she authorised, or found by other experts in Scotland, Ireland, and strangely enough Brittany in France.
For Harry, growing up as a child of Danu, was fraught with excitement and peril. Not least because of the innate connection he now holds to the mist. There is also his aptitude with things like poetry, blacksmithing, and farm animals, while being average for his age at everything else. His ability to talk to the local snakes has been a source of hope for Morgana.
Ephis looks down from the sword point that she hid on, "I know you can fly, I've seen you do it before. So all you need to do is tag me and we can go in for ice cream."
"But then you'll just fly away again."
"Then you know what to do, your mother has shown you often enough."
"I'm not playing anymore." Harry pouts and sits at the base of the statue.
9 years ago Ephis would have gone to comfort Harry, 5 years ago she's have flown down so that she could see how he was doing. But now, after being part of the Mórrígan's household for nearly a decade, such instincts have been tempered by the experience of living with a war goddess. Instead, she takes the opportunity to change her hiding place from the sword to behind a chimney pot. The excited chattering of the other fae that Harry has already tagged alerts him to the fact something's changed. Looking up he notices that Ephis has moved and throws his hands in the air, "Oh come on!"
Holding his hands out, his form shrinks down into the form of a small brown Linnet. Wearing this form is always so uncomfortable, and leaves him very much aware of the fact he has taken the place of his mother's sister in the pantheon, something he has yet to tell Mórrígan. As he's flying around looking for Ephis, a shadow crosses the sun and he desperately dodges to one side as a barn owl swoops through the space he was just occupying. Swiftly returning to human form, he stands on the air and shouts, "Hey, what's the big idea!? You could have killed me doing that!"
Ignoring his outburst, the owl instead swoops around the courtyard and, with a couple of beats of its wings, rises up to Harry's level before landing on his shoulder.
"Oh, you're domesticated. Why would anyone want to domesticate such a magnificent species." The owl puffs up it's chest in pride, "Come on, Mum's at her roundhouse today. Ephi, games over due to outside interference! I'm going to find Mum!"
Cautiously, Ephis pokes her head around the chimneypot, and seeing the owl on Harry's shoulder, flies down to take her position on his other shoulder. Now that she's there, Harry approaches the gate in the centre of the courtyard and concentrates on it. Over the next few minutes mist forms in the gate, and then the clearing his mothers roundhouse occupies first becomes visible, and then gains focus as if approaching it through the mist. Once it is completely clear, Harry lets out an exhausted breath. His mother can do this with nary a wave of her hand. As he starts to walk through, a veritable rainbow of fae fly past him and into the clearing, before heading off to their own homes in the mist. One of them gets caught by one of the omnipresent guards outside the entrance.
As Harry walks forward, he holds out a hand to one side and a bronze sword materialises in his grasp. Seeing this, the guards hold their hands out, palms visible, and take a step away from the door. When he was younger, they'd have tested him, but his mothers lessons were as thorough as they were painful. Given that they were exceedingly painful, with mistakes brutally punished and then corrected… Each of the guards had, at one point or another, been part of his lessons in warcraft. Just like the game he'd been playing with the fae, after the local children stopped wanting to play once he got too good at both the hiding and seeking. Oh, he still had human friends, but they wouldn't do anything vaguely competitive with him. That didn't stop them from egging him on at the pool table when their parents took them all tenpin bowling in Stirling every month.
Suddenly he stops just inside the house, sniffs the air and sighs, "I'll come back later mum! An owl arrived with a letter, so don't take too long."
Mórrígan calls back, "It's ok, come on through. I've put everything down now."
Harry blushes, "Mum!"
"Oh Harry, I have no idea where you got this prudishness from. When I was last living amongst mortals, you'd often have 3 or 4 generations living in the same room. Most nights there would be at least one couple having sex."
"Mum!"
"Anyway, you said that the owl has a letter."
"Yeah, it's weird, it's a domesticated owl."
Mórrígan comes through one of the hangings, and the owl takes one look and tries to flee. Her hand flashes out and grabs it gently by the wings, "Welsh descent then, from Arianrhod's get. Fear not, I am not here to take you as my own. I believe you have a letter for my son."
The owl bristles, as though someone stepped on it's grave, before it turns it's head to face her and hoots softly.
"Harry, hold out your arm." When he does, she places the owl down, and releases her grip. Deftly she removes the letter and opens it, reads it and then nods.
"Harry my son, it seems your fate has arrived. You are to start at a school for mortal magic in September. Do you wish to go?"
Harry turns to look at Ephis, "Will you come with me Ephi?"
"Of course, where else would I be? I am sworn to you after all."
Harry laughs, "I know, but sometimes I wonder if it isn't the other way around."
"I would never presume such."
"Then yes, I would like to go. I might be able to make some friends that I can see as equals."
Mórrígan shakes her head, "Friends I'm sure you'll find aplenty, equals I'm sure will be in scant supply. I will also ensure that you have the supplies you need to keep up with your modern subjects."
"But Mum! You know I hate math, it doesn't make sense."
"This is why you need to work on it, much like your nature rebelled against learning the arts of war. Math and science are both weaknesses that we share, and so we must work to overcome those deficiencies in our knowledge. For have I not been studying right beside you?"
Harry slumps, "You have mum, but it's so hard."
"If we only ever do what comes easily to us…"
"…We become complacent, and will be caught off guard when faced with a challenge."
"Indeed." She holds out her hand and a velum letter appears, which she attaches to the leg of the owl. A wave of her hand opens a portal to their mortal home for the owl to fly through.
A month after Harry's disappearance, Petunia and Vernon are finally able to return to England with Dudley. Grunning's has been really good and allowed them time to grieve, after a farmer found 'his' body, a week after his disappearance, while digging out a badger set. As the set was uninhabited, the police turn a blind eye to just why the farmer was digging it out. The autopsy report says that he probably crawled into the set when he couldn't find his way home and went to sleep. He had frostbite in all of his extremities, though they hadn't had time to discolour before he finally passed away.
Despite crying herself to sleep in Vernon's arms for a week after the discovery, Petunia's health quickly improves as she's able to sleep more regularly, and she no longer gets random bouts of weakness. By the time of the funeral in the local chapel, even Vernon sheds a tear for his lost nephew.
A visit to this village would become a yearly occurrence for the family in the future. Even after Grunning's opens up a Canadian branch in a few years time, and promotes Vernon to branch manager. With Petunia able to look after Dudley more effectively, he grows up to be a very different person than he could have otherwise.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
In Dunblane a Harry Danann, son to Morgana Danann, is registered in the local registry office. If the systems were better linked, automated flags would be raised, as the birth of both the deceased Harry Potter, and Harry Danann are identical apart from the mother. Instead, a copy of the birth certificate is posted to the new address, while the central office is notified by fax machine of the new resident of Dunblane. The local Council, Town hall, and Doctors also get the paperwork required to have had Morgana on record for years.═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
In the Ministry of Magic, functionaries are running between departments trying to identify a massive surge of magic across the UK and Ireland that has knocked out all of their detection grids, including those they use to identify illegal entry into the country. In all the turmoil, nobody would notice a minor change to a sealed record and the book of names in Hogwarts, as the name Potter becomes Danann, and always was Danann.═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Unfortunately for the wizards, the goblins of Gringotts are not so lax. They also recognise the alias of those they used to call Gods and Rulers before they retreated from the world. This triggers a similar level of panic to that in the ministry. However, in this case it's a structured panic to ensure that the Potter accounts are complete, accounted for, and most importantly, completely above board.═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
Several years pass as Morgana becomes a reclusive pillar of the community, one who everyone assumes earns her money from stocks and shares, with an interest in Celtic history. Her son, Harry, is known as a mischievous little tyke with a good heart.Every year she would host a feast at her home for Samhain, where she would prepare historically accurate dishes, seating, and entertainment. This was always well attended, as it was open to the whole village. Even though spaces were, by necessity, limited. She was also active in the local re-enactment scene, and her most ardent student is her son, who she home-schools.
Much to the consternation of the local churches, the Danann's are very much not Christian, not even giving the nod towards the religion that most others do. Instead, Morgana would hold classes on the ancient religions of the Celtic people, and even religious ceremonies. All based on archeological records that she either found personally through digs that she authorised, or found by other experts in Scotland, Ireland, and strangely enough Brittany in France.
For Harry, growing up as a child of Danu, was fraught with excitement and peril. Not least because of the innate connection he now holds to the mist. There is also his aptitude with things like poetry, blacksmithing, and farm animals, while being average for his age at everything else. His ability to talk to the local snakes has been a source of hope for Morgana.
═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════
"Evie, that's not fair!" Harry sulks at Ephis, who is currently the last of the fae that he hasn't tagged yet.Ephis looks down from the sword point that she hid on, "I know you can fly, I've seen you do it before. So all you need to do is tag me and we can go in for ice cream."
"But then you'll just fly away again."
"Then you know what to do, your mother has shown you often enough."
"I'm not playing anymore." Harry pouts and sits at the base of the statue.
9 years ago Ephis would have gone to comfort Harry, 5 years ago she's have flown down so that she could see how he was doing. But now, after being part of the Mórrígan's household for nearly a decade, such instincts have been tempered by the experience of living with a war goddess. Instead, she takes the opportunity to change her hiding place from the sword to behind a chimney pot. The excited chattering of the other fae that Harry has already tagged alerts him to the fact something's changed. Looking up he notices that Ephis has moved and throws his hands in the air, "Oh come on!"
Holding his hands out, his form shrinks down into the form of a small brown Linnet. Wearing this form is always so uncomfortable, and leaves him very much aware of the fact he has taken the place of his mother's sister in the pantheon, something he has yet to tell Mórrígan. As he's flying around looking for Ephis, a shadow crosses the sun and he desperately dodges to one side as a barn owl swoops through the space he was just occupying. Swiftly returning to human form, he stands on the air and shouts, "Hey, what's the big idea!? You could have killed me doing that!"
Ignoring his outburst, the owl instead swoops around the courtyard and, with a couple of beats of its wings, rises up to Harry's level before landing on his shoulder.
"Oh, you're domesticated. Why would anyone want to domesticate such a magnificent species." The owl puffs up it's chest in pride, "Come on, Mum's at her roundhouse today. Ephi, games over due to outside interference! I'm going to find Mum!"
Cautiously, Ephis pokes her head around the chimneypot, and seeing the owl on Harry's shoulder, flies down to take her position on his other shoulder. Now that she's there, Harry approaches the gate in the centre of the courtyard and concentrates on it. Over the next few minutes mist forms in the gate, and then the clearing his mothers roundhouse occupies first becomes visible, and then gains focus as if approaching it through the mist. Once it is completely clear, Harry lets out an exhausted breath. His mother can do this with nary a wave of her hand. As he starts to walk through, a veritable rainbow of fae fly past him and into the clearing, before heading off to their own homes in the mist. One of them gets caught by one of the omnipresent guards outside the entrance.
As Harry walks forward, he holds out a hand to one side and a bronze sword materialises in his grasp. Seeing this, the guards hold their hands out, palms visible, and take a step away from the door. When he was younger, they'd have tested him, but his mothers lessons were as thorough as they were painful. Given that they were exceedingly painful, with mistakes brutally punished and then corrected… Each of the guards had, at one point or another, been part of his lessons in warcraft. Just like the game he'd been playing with the fae, after the local children stopped wanting to play once he got too good at both the hiding and seeking. Oh, he still had human friends, but they wouldn't do anything vaguely competitive with him. That didn't stop them from egging him on at the pool table when their parents took them all tenpin bowling in Stirling every month.
Suddenly he stops just inside the house, sniffs the air and sighs, "I'll come back later mum! An owl arrived with a letter, so don't take too long."
Mórrígan calls back, "It's ok, come on through. I've put everything down now."
Harry blushes, "Mum!"
"Oh Harry, I have no idea where you got this prudishness from. When I was last living amongst mortals, you'd often have 3 or 4 generations living in the same room. Most nights there would be at least one couple having sex."
"Mum!"
"Anyway, you said that the owl has a letter."
"Yeah, it's weird, it's a domesticated owl."
Mórrígan comes through one of the hangings, and the owl takes one look and tries to flee. Her hand flashes out and grabs it gently by the wings, "Welsh descent then, from Arianrhod's get. Fear not, I am not here to take you as my own. I believe you have a letter for my son."
The owl bristles, as though someone stepped on it's grave, before it turns it's head to face her and hoots softly.
"Harry, hold out your arm." When he does, she places the owl down, and releases her grip. Deftly she removes the letter and opens it, reads it and then nods.
"Harry my son, it seems your fate has arrived. You are to start at a school for mortal magic in September. Do you wish to go?"
Harry turns to look at Ephis, "Will you come with me Ephi?"
"Of course, where else would I be? I am sworn to you after all."
Harry laughs, "I know, but sometimes I wonder if it isn't the other way around."
"I would never presume such."
"Then yes, I would like to go. I might be able to make some friends that I can see as equals."
Mórrígan shakes her head, "Friends I'm sure you'll find aplenty, equals I'm sure will be in scant supply. I will also ensure that you have the supplies you need to keep up with your modern subjects."
"But Mum! You know I hate math, it doesn't make sense."
"This is why you need to work on it, much like your nature rebelled against learning the arts of war. Math and science are both weaknesses that we share, and so we must work to overcome those deficiencies in our knowledge. For have I not been studying right beside you?"
Harry slumps, "You have mum, but it's so hard."
"If we only ever do what comes easily to us…"
"…We become complacent, and will be caught off guard when faced with a challenge."
"Indeed." She holds out her hand and a velum letter appears, which she attaches to the leg of the owl. A wave of her hand opens a portal to their mortal home for the owl to fly through.