Jack Cooper was a muggleborn wizard who lived on the borders of the magical world. He had gotten outstandings on all his OWLs but only pursued two NEWTS transfiguration and charms. After graduating Hogwarts he had gone to a muggle design school and apprenticed himself to a fashion designer in Paris. Nowadays he ran a small design studio that made dresses for rich muggles and the occasional witch or wizard.
Felicia got Jack to make all her clothes, and about a third of Stephen's. He would be perfect for this. "Are you wearing muggle clothes under your robes Harry?" Knowing that was a common habit of those that were muggle raised.
Harry nodded.
"Great." Felicia paid the check for their lunch then lead the way to the Leaky Cauldron. When they reached the doorway to muggle London, she smiled at him. "Ready?"
Harry cocked an eyebrow in question.
Felicia changed her robe to a trenchcoat, then said "Jacket?"
Harry nodded and a moment later they stepped out into muggle London and Felicia led the way to the nearest underground and they traveled to Regent Street. "I want wizarding garments with growth charms, Mrs. Corner."
"I know Harry. Jack is a wizard, but he lives in the muggle world. I think you two will get along nicely."
A half an hour later she sat back and sipped a cup of tea, while Harry and Jack argued and brainstormed about Harry's wardrobe. Her part in all of this was quite small, all she did was outlined the number and type of garments required from there it was all up to Harry and Jack. She snickered when forty five minutes later their conversation ended with a "all right then" from Jack swiftly followed by a "right then" from Harry. Both males pulled on their jackets.
"We're going somewhere?" She got to her feet.
"Felicia my love, do you see mounds of fabric here? Of course we're going out, we have to find the fabrics for this young man's wardrobe."
"I'll have to apparate us, or we'll never make the warehouses before they close." After giving coordinates to Felicia, he took hold of Harry. "Hang tight, little man."
Three hours later, the three returned exhausted to the apartment/workshop above the shop. Jack was tired but was sporting a large grin. He was very excited to do this wardrobe it was going to be rich in texture, austere in color and while from a distance it would be mistakable for normal wizarding robes up close it would be clear these were anything but normal robes.
Harry had chosen japanese hakamas, long tunics, kimono style coats, and haoris as a main base for the wardrobe but he also included full skirted full length coats with and without pleats, cassock style robes with split skirts to make movement easy, and sufi style dervish dresses.
All in all, it would be a unique and hopefully trendy wizarding wardrobe. Grays, blacks, and blues dominated but there were also greens and a few dark purples, one red and gold chinese check brocade, and another navy and gold floral brocade. Brocades, velvets, and silks were the dominant fabrics but there was wool superfine, cotton in multiple weights, denim and even leather. Jack couldn't wait to get started.
He chivvied Felicia and Harry out, and told Harry he'd see him the twenty third and not to forget his vault key, he'd need it.
Harry bid Felicia a thank you and a goodbye, before activating the portkey to the apartment. Libby took one look at his tired countenance, sat him down to dinner, ran a bath for him and had him in bed asleep by eight thirty.
While his wife helped Harry with shopping Stephen Corner swiftly went through and filled out the paperwork so Minerva McGongall would never be able to claim Harry as her ward. After he sent it off to Petunia Dursley with an owl, he went to speak to his younger two children. Like his wife he had heard the comments and felt them inappropriate. "Adrianna, Michael, may I speak to you for a moment?"
"Sure Dad. What's up?"
"You two need to lose the attitude."
"What attitude?" Michael asked confused.
"The attitude that anything Slytherin is evil. It is offensive in the extreme to your mum, because were she not muggleborn she would have been in Slytherin herself. I know that attitude is a dominant one but the fact is there are a lot of Slytherins out there and many of them are not dark. Think of Healer Johnson he's been the healer for this family and a friend for a number of years right?"
"Yeah dad. He's the best pediatric healer at St. Mungo's."
"That's right he is the best healer. That was his ambition and it got him sorted into Slytherin. Outside of school there are no uniforms to tell you which house someone belongs to. You may very easily wind up working alongside someone from Hufflepuff or Gryffindor or even Slytherin. House prejudice has no place in the working world, and frankly I'm appalled the Headmaster allows it to go on at school.
"Since you've come home you've been going off on how Harry Potter is dark because he got sorted into Slytherin. Going off about how he's nothing like the books. Gossiping about he said this or did that, did you hear him say that, did you see him do whatever he supposedly did? IF not then maybe you need to reconsider. The fact is none of the books written about him are true. Everyone basing their expectations of what he would be like, based on those books is foolishness personified."
"The talk that because he is a Slytherin he is evil, will cease. Lord Harry James Potter is a client, a very important client, with the potential to bring a lot of business into the firm, and he will be here for the party so I suggest you both go to your rooms and think about what I've said. Because at the party I expect you to be polite if not even welcoming to him. Is any of this in anyway unclear?"
"No sir, crystal clear." Michael and Adrianna were good kids, and seldom had they incurred their parents wrath, but it was clear on this occasion they had.
"Good."
Michael Corner sat down like his father asked and thought about what his Dad had said. Attempting to bring logic into it. He acknowledged that everyone had expected that Harry James Potter, the last of the Potters, and savior of the wizarding world would be sorted into Gryffindor as all Potters of the last four generations had been. However,
Harry Potter wasn't raised by his Potter family, he was raised in the muggle world. So maybe he wasn't automatically a Gryffindor the way Weasleys were. On reflection the books published about Harry did have a rather fairy tale tone to them making it sound like he was this all powerful all knowing godlike person.
Harry was just a kid even younger than Michael, and he was learning magic right alongside him. Michael looked hard at what Harry had been like in their shared classes Herbology, Astronomy, and Transfiguration.
He was always polite, if a bit distant but considering how he got treated… he usually worked hard. Maybe he was Slytherin because he wanted to prove himself good at magic despite being muggle raised. He had never to Michael's experience done anything remotely dark, and he was friends with both Longbottom, the almost squib, and Granger, a muggleborn. Maybe he should give Harry Potter another chance.
....
In the two days leading up to the dinner party, Libby had taught Harry to floo using the beach house making him travel back and forth until he didn't catapult out of the fireplace. Instead he could floo with a semblance of grace, much better than his first trip when he shot out pf it as if propelled out of a canon. If there was one thing this break was teaching him it was how to travel as a wizard. He no longer fell to the ground when portkeying, and he hoped he didn't stumble too badly when he flooed to the Corner's.
Between trips he spoke to the portraits of his ancestors and worked on Neville's portrait. He learned the a lot of family history, and he was told of the family grimoire that was in the family vault at Gringott's. One of his great grandmothers recommended having the elves find a book of charms that were household and personal care charms. His great, great, great great-grandfather asked about what accidental magic he'd done.
When he mentioned the binding Dumbledore had placed when he was five, he thought the portrait would have an apoplectic fit then and there. Then when great, great, great, great-grandfather found out that Harry had apparated both himself and his large cousin despite the bind, he promptly suggested that Harry work towards learning to do wandless magic because he probably had enough power to learn it. Harry thought about his almost summoning one of the MacLaggens wands and agreed.
The portrait that interested him the most though was that of the first Baron of Potter, Hadrian Potter. Many of the portraits had been less than happy with where Harry had been sorted. But the first Baron of Potter was thrilled about it. He told Harry the story of how the Potter family was elevated to the nobility.
Back in those days, the Potters had been gentry newly arrived with William of Normandy. His grandfather had been a margrave and a vassal to the Earl of Staffordshire. His father Ignottus Peverell had married into the very well to do but minor family of Potter, that only had a daughter on the condition that he take the family name and all the children would be Potters not Peverells. Hadrian had gone to Hogwarts and been in Slytherin, one of Salazar's own apprentices.
He had loved the school, he'd actually stayed and been a Professor of warding and defense at the school. The truth was in the early days Salazar didn't approve of muggleborns because a) their level of education was low (most could not read or write), b) they were superstitious, and c) they seldom understood proper hygiene.
Then as was somewhat common in those days, some Christians got it in their heads that the magic users among them were evil incarnate and killed most of Salazar's family including his daughter in law and firstborn grandchild that was a mere baby. Salazar had been a mage. His wife a low level witch.
They had been soul bonded; most of the time when one of a soul bonded pair dies the other follows. Because of the discrepancy of power and the sudden way his wife died, he did not die, instead he went mad. Hadrian Potter had looked at his much loved master's behavior and sought immediate help from the Duke of Gryffindor.
Godric Gryffindor, was the grandson of Cnut a prior King of England, whose mother a princess was given to her wizard husband as payment for preventing Dragons from destroying several shires in England. Godric took him to the William the 1st who assigned the two of them the task of putting down the insane but powerful wizard.
Godric came up with the plan, that he would get Salazar's attention and fight him, and that Hadrian would come from behind and finish him. It wasn't a plan that Hadrian liked but it was probably the only one with a chance of working. And work it did, but not before Godric was almost fatally injured.
Hadrian had killed Salazar, and wound up defending himself and Godric from many of Salazar's followers. When they returned to the king, Godric's tales of Hadrian's deeds had given the Potter's the elevation to Baron, and the family motto, Pro Fidelibus. Hadrian had always felt as if he betrayed his mentor but he knew he had done the right thing. Ten years later he married one of Godric's granddaughters. And that was the start of the magical Potter family.
Early evening on the 21st Harry dressed carefully in his green velvet dress robes. He grabbed the basket holding the gifts to the Corners and their law partners. He mentally reviewed the etiquette he'd learned. He thought about the political information he hoped to gain, and created a list of who he should speak to in his mind.
He periodically reminded himself that he should breathe, listen, and be calm even if things didn't go perfectly, because he was a kid and kids make mistakes, most adults wouldn't hold it against him. He checked the clock, time to go. He stepped to the fireplace threw in his handful of floo powder when the flames turned green he stepped in and called out "Corner's Grove."
....
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