Harry Potter and the Enigma of the Foreign Matrices – Chapter One – Diagon Alley Disorder

by Katherine Chan

A/N: Okay, as with all my other stories, I've come up with an idea, but unlike my other stories, where I just start typing and make it up as I go, this time, I will have a plot that has been created beforehand. But I have an idea, so technically I'm not actually making the story to fit the title, which I've actually come up with before I've written the story. Have you noticed that – barring Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone – all the books' titles are 'Harry Potter and the insert word(s) of insert word(s) '?

So yeah, my idea is: A witch transferring from another country, bringing with her all the 'foreign' cultural idiosyncrasies that exist there, etc., etc. Okay, okay, I confess, it's a special release – Fanfiction, that is – in the 'Clone' storyline I have going at , also under this penname. Who's that girl? It's… drumroll the Katrina Elena Dolohov! Err… okay, so some of you may have gathered that Jen/Katrina/The Shadow 'died' at the end of Pain Goes With Death, but a lot of people – note, all readers that discussed the story with me later – thought she was still alive. I guess the bit where Katrina says '…You'll see when it's time for you to see me…' made readers think that… ach, my original idea had been that Katrina would die, and then Olivia would eventually die of old age and you get my point? No? That's good, because I'm reversing on my decision, and Katrina is still alive.

!PLEASE NOTE! Harry Potter is the property of Bloomsbury Books, and is written by Joanne Kathleen Rowling. The following story is based on said book, and does not reflect nor affect the aforesaid author's writing.

Anyway, let the story begin!

Harry jerked awake, fingers already scrabbling at his scar that had been paining him for the last few months and even more so when he woke up. It took a few seconds for the surreal and new sensation to sink in, or perhaps the lack of the said searing pain to be more exact. He scrambled up from the bed and staggered in front of the mirror, tilting his head this way and that to see if there was something different, something that would tell him why there was no lancing pain.

What had he done differently? He wracked his memory, going through the monotonous day that he relived every day of the summer holidays. The Dursleys did not speak to him at all, and when he was in the room, they crowded together in the opposite corner, hurriedly whispering to each other and decamping from the room as soon as possible.

With no-one around the house talking to him, he was left with the frequent letters that his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger sent him, and they would have been a Godsend had they not been filled with repeated nothings, echoing each other. The safety of Owl-Post had dropped dramatically when Voldemort had been resurrected into his mortal body and the Death Eaters back in business, so to speak.

No, nothing had been different. Perhaps Voldemort, with whom Harry's scar was the bridge between the two, had been the one… Yes, that was it. Harry was supposed to be building up his mind's defences, in his extra lessons practicing the art of Occlumency, although he was failing miserably at that. Perhaps Voldemort had managed to find a way to stop the flow of emotions from roaring across the bond and causing Harry to momentarily experience Voldemort's mood, or, even though the idea itself was laughable, Harry had managed to achieve it.

Still worrying over the problem in his head, he dressed quickly, glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall – there were still five and a half more weeks to go until his return to Hogwarts – and slipped down the stairs as silently as possible. There was no telling if Dudley was still asleep, attempting to, and knowing Aunt Petunia's wildly differing attitude to her 'Ickle Diddykins', attaining a few more minutes of sleep, and God forbid if Harry were to disturb him, even if the Dursleys were thoroughly terrified of him.

He gazed at the empty kitchen, three washed sets of cutlery draining on the sideboard and another set on the table. A note stuck to the fridge by a magnet informed him that the two slices of buttered bread and the cup of water was his breakfast, and that they – the Dursleys, of course, never included Harry in their outings – were going out for the day. Harry stared at the words, and an inkling of fear inched itself into his heart.

Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had placed a protection on him, one that while he was still in the house in which his mother's blood still dwelled – in other words, his late mother's sister Aunt Petunia – and while he still called that place home, no-one could harm him. As he hurriedly wolfed down the piddling breakfast, a shudder went through him as he wondered if the protection still held if she was not physically inside the house, and also if his calling Hogwarts more of a home than Number Four, Privet Drive would affect it.

A creak in the ageing house's foundations made him jump, and when no more suspicious noises issued, he returned to his room, left hand unconsciously rubbing his lower right arm where he had loosely tied his wand to, under the jumper that Mrs Weasley had kitted him for last Christmas. Harry Potter began writing…

Dear Sirius,

It didn't happen-

He stopped writing, and then prodded the parchment with his wand, burning it into cinders. Harry berated himself for thinking that his godfather was still alive, that his godfather would still be there to read about the strange happenings occurring in connexion with his scar. Picking up another piece of paper, he began writing again, blinking back tears.

Professor Dumbledore,

Nothing happened this morning.

Harry paused. Surely the Death Eaters would be attempting to stop any information at all from reaching Dumbledore. He prodded the parchment again, thankful that he was now of age and could perform magic outside of the school campus. Hedwig, his owl, fluttered in the window, along with two other owls. Lightening them of their messages, he pushed his attempts at a letter aside, and opened the three letters.

The first one, from the brown owl, bore the Hogwarts crest. It contained the notice informing him that school would begin on September the 1st (how could he not know that?), and also a booklist of books that he needed for his sixth and second-last year at Hogwarts. Putting it aside, he opened the second letter, the one Hedwig had been carrying.

Dear Harry,

You're being picked up as soon as possible, as you need to get to Diagon Alley to buy your new school things, and also so you can go take your Apparation test. Be ready soon.

Mr Weasley

Harry stared at the letter, and then slit open the last letter, bearing the insignia of the Ministry of Magic.

Dear Mr Harry Potter,

With your coming of age, you are required to be trained for and take the Apparation Exams. Training begins on the 20th of July, and the exam is on the 1st of August. Please ensure that you attend the first training session at the Ministry of Magic…

He skimmed over the rest of the letter, and then put it aside to cram everything he needed into his school trunk. Haphazardly throwing in his school uniforms, he was startled out of his focussed packing by another noise, from downstairs. The doorbell!

Clattering down the stairs, he peered through the little lens in the middle of the door. A surge of relief flooded through him, and he opened the door.

"Professor Lupin! Tonks!" He glanced quizzically at the other four that were standing on his doorstep, none of whom he recognized. "Harry! You packed yet? I hope you got Arthur's letter." Harry nodded, and let them in. "Where are we going? The Burrow? Or-" Harry gesticulated wildly, and the others understood him to mean the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, otherwise known as Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Tonks helped him load the trunk into the waiting car, and as Professor Lupin dropped a letter onto the kitchen table, he answered, "Not the Burrow." He said no more, and Harry understood it to mean he was going to the second destination.

Grimmauld Place was Sirius' family's home, and now that he was dead, Lupin, one of Sirius' best friends whilst they were in Hogwarts, and Harry, Sirius' godson, were unofficially the owners of the place. Harry suspected everyone disliked the place as much as he did, doubly so now that Sirius was dead and the whole place reminded them of him. As the car wound its way around London, occasionally going through culs-de-sac and u-turning here and there, taking looping routes and so on, Harry gazed disconsolately at the passing roads, the only silver lining being that he didn't have to beg the Dursleys to take him to London for him to buy his school things, nor did he have to find a way to Kings' Cross for the train to Hogwarts. Harry supposed that Ron and Hermione would also be there, and he brightened up a little.

The entered the house and the first thing Harry noticed was that the curtains shrouding the portrait of Sirius' mother were gone, as was the portrait. "You finally managed to get rid of it?" He gestured at the empty wall. Lupin nodded. "Yeah, we found a way to get around the Permanent Sticking Charm, and we've taken down the tapestry in the drawing room, as well as a few other things." The place had definitely improved since he'd last been there, and he was glad that it was significantly changed that the house didn't breathe 'Sirius' everywhere he went. Immediately, he was flooded with guilt, rebuking himself for not wanting to remember his own godfather.

"Harry!" Hermione hurried into the vestibule, closely followed by Ron. "You're here!" She hugged him, and Harry noticed that he was now significantly taller than her, though he was nothing on Ron, who was as tall and gangly as ever. "You have no idea how boring it's been without you." He complained to Harry, though he continued to grin. Hermione huffed at the hidden and quite possibly accidental jab, but left it at that.

"Do you have to go to Apparation training as well, Harry? I'm looking forward to it ever so much, apparently it's so-"

"Give it a rest, Hermione. I don't think Harry wants to hear about Holiday School the moment he walks in here. Hey, did you hear? The Chudley Cannons have started winning the Lea-"

"It is not 'Holiday School'!"

The pair continued to bicker, as if trying too hard to 'act normal', and Harry tuned out and followed behind Ron and Hermione, who were carrying his trunk up the stairs. He was woken out of his melancholy reverie when he realised that they had stopped arguing – playfully – and were looking at him worriedly.

"Harry? Are you… okay?" Hermione's query came out timid, shaky and unsure.

Harry shook his head in a diagonal motion and sighed. "I… I don't know. I just miss him so much…" They exchanged glances over the trunk, and then dropped the trunk down in the room he had shared last summer with Ron. On Ron's side, there was already complete and utter chaos, something Hermione and Mrs Weasley clucked disapprovingly over quite frequently.

"We… we miss him too, Harry." Harry laughed a little, mirthlessly.

"You don't have to be so… so submissive talking to me, you know. I'm not going to jump down your throats like… like last time. Come on, let's talk about something else." He cast around for another topic. "Say, what have you guys been doing while you've been here? Cleaning?"

Hermione laughed a little, sounding slightly strained. "No, no! They finished while we were still at… They finished before we came here."

"If they made us clean one more cupboard…" Ron made a throttling motion in the air. "No, we've just been doing homework and being bored. We can't even play Quidditch. Say, how many OWLS did you get? I got a few E's, one O – that was in Defence Against the Dark Arts, mind you – but mostly A's…"

Harry cracked a smile. "I bet you got all E's, hey Hermione?" She blushed, and Ron burst out in laughter. "Yep, that's the Hermione we know and love! So yeah, how many did you get?"

"I got an O in Defence Against the Dark Arts too, and also in Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures and Charms. Potions… I got an E for that, and for Astronomy – I'm amazed about that one, considering what happened while we were doing the test – and an A for Divination." They continued to chatter about school, trying ever so hard to avoid the issue of Voldemort, his Death Eaters, Sirius or what the Ministry of Magic were doing.

A few weeks passed, their Apparation training came, and with some difficulty, they managed to pass their tests. Harry was personally thankful that he hadn't splinched himself, the result of which he would really be split on where to go.

They decided to conduct their Diagon Alley shopping trip in the last week of holidays. After they had replenished their funds at Gringotts Bank, Mrs Weasley collected all of their book lists and rather unwillingly accepted Harry's and Hermione's money to pay for their things.

"Let's go to Florean Fortescue's place and get some sundaes! You know we haven't really celebrated passing our Apparation tests, not without a Firewhisky Fantas-"

Hermione butted in. "Ron! NO. ALCOHOL! You, are, a, prefect. We may be of age, but no alcohol, okay?!"

"Okay, okay! But we're still getting sundaes! Right?" He added.

They settled down outside of the parlour, savouring their triple chocolate ice-cream with peanut butter and melted caramel. Halfway through their sundaes, the peaceful air was rent by several screaming witches and yelling wizards, all of whom were running away from something. Something that seemed to be destroying its surroundings.

"What's happening?! Is it Vol- Is it You-Know-Who?" They leapt up from their chairs, and then they realised that no-one was trying to do magic on whatever was going on…

"I don't know… I don't think so-" Hermione was cut off by another voice, colder, harder, a male's voice.

"I've given too much to follow you here, brat! You, are, not, going, to, beat, ME!" Each of his words seemed to be punctuated by a rather metallic noise, rather like metal hitting the cobblestones of the street. As the crowds of shoppers fled, with Harry, Hermione and Ron peering around the umbrella that had been knocked over, they saw a youth who was masked, darting around the street dodging glinting metal things that sunk into the stone behind the youth, thrown by the man flipping from building to building. The youth had short spiked black hair, and they assumed it was a 'he'.

"Oh my… Why isn't anyone trying to stop them?! Someone could get killed-" Hermione stopped and gaped as the youth executed a flip from the wall behind him, snagged one of the projectiles from the air and threw it at the man. It sunk straight into his chest, but it did not seem to faze him, something which truly scared Harry. Only witches and wizards could enter Diagon Alley, and this man wasn't Voldemort – who knew how much stronger than this man Voldemort was?

"Holy… What's he doing?!" The boy had – seemingly – Apparated right behind the man, and was pummelling him with his bare hands and exhibiting exceptional gymnastic ability as he spun and dealt him a few rather forceful kicks, something that became apparent when the man dodged one and the wall behind him expelled a large amount of pulverized stone.

The pair landed on the ground, surrounded by the fallen knives and also by the dust created from the damage dealt to the surroundings. "We have to help him!" Ron pulled out his wand, only to be stopped by Hermione. "We don't know why they're fighting! For all we know, he could be working for Voldemort, and the other man could be… Oh… Maybe not." She drew out her own wand, and Harry did so too. The man had somehow sent glowing attacks from his hand shooting at the youth, and those of which the boy had not been hit with hit the surrounding buildings and cobbled streets, and as the dust cleared, they saw it had created several gaping pits, a few dead bodies and parts of them flung hear and there, belonging to those witches and wizards that had escaped into the now destroyed buildings.

The boy, however, was still in one piece, and though there were several cuts from shrapnel, it seemed the blasts had not done much damage to him. "You killed these… these innocents!" He spat at the man, and he drew out his wand. "You and I know there's only one spell that'll do anything against you." As he opened his mouth to utter the spell, the man burst out into raucous laughter. "And you think you could do it? You think you'll be able to summon a Patronus? You, who has never had a single happy moment in your-"

"Expecto Patronum!" The man had seemed slightly frightened at first, but when he saw the silver haze that came shooting out of the youth's wand, he burst out once more in laughter. "Not good enough, I think. Why don't you try again?" His manner horrified Harry; how could he laugh and play with this boy when he'd just killed, what, twelve people? Then what they were talking about sank in.

"He needs a Patronus!"

"Harry, come back here! You'll get yourself killed!" Hermione hissed as he pounded across the streets, coughing as his lungs tried to expel the dust particles entering his respiratory system. "Ex… Expecto… Expecto Patronum!" Harry summoned the memory of Gryffindor winning the Quidditch Cup last year, complete with Ron riding astride the shoulders of the ecstatic Gryffindor supporters. The glowing stag appeared, cantering straight at the man who had whirled around, eyes wide in horror. "What?! Who are you?" Before Harry could answer, his Patronus had speared the man on its antlers, and the masked boy had whispered, "Harry Potter. He's Harry Potter."

Harry watched, horrified, as the man faded away into nothing. The boy slumped to her hands and knees, slipping up his mask slightly as he violently vomited on the ground. Hermione hurried to the boy, as witches and wizards began appearing, gasping at all the damage. "Are… are you okay?" The boy spat out the last of the acidic bile, rinsed her mouth with a glass of water she had conjured, and answered "Yeah… I'll… I'll be fine." They realised from her voice that it was actually a she, something that seemed to have been hidden under the heavy trench-coat she was wearing. She looked up at Harry, as he stared back at her, horrified, terrified that he had just killed someone…

"You didn't kill him. He wasn't really… unh!…" The girl got back up, and they gasped as they watched her wounds on her visible right hand and around her neck heal themselves at a rate faster than anything they had ever seen. "He wasn't really human in a rather abstract sort of thing… you wouldn't understand, but he's just been sent back to 'whence he came from', you know, that sort of fairy-tale kind of thing. Thanks, though. I've never been able to… you know, create a Patronus."

They looked at each other. The man had mentioned something, something which Harry really couldn't understand. He'd had a hard enough life, so how bad could hers have been for her to not be able to come up with a happy enough memory or thought to create the Patronus? And her accent was peculiar to say the least. It was most definitely not British, nor did it have the strange lilt common to European countries – like pronouncing 'cabbage' as 'cebbedge' – and it was vaguely American.

"He said… he said he'd followed you… But you don't sound like you're from Britain. What country did you come here from?" asked Hermione. The girl laughed. "Am I that obvious? Ah, I'm from Australia. Pretty warm compared to here, even though it's winter there right now and summer here." She looked around at the damage done. "Erm… hang on a moment." She waved her hands around a bit, and they gaped as the dust began swirling around, filling in the gaps, returning the area to the state it had been before the fight. "Well… that's fixed. Dunno about those people though… I'm not sure if they fix themselves if there's just parts-" They all stared as the body parts began wriggling back together, the squelching noises becoming too much, all four of them sticking their fingers in their ears and shutting their eyes.

When they dared open their eyes again, Harry was exceptionally shocked to see some of them getting up, totally healed and definitely alive. "What just happened? Why are they alive? Did you do something...?" He wondered if she could bring anyone back, if she could bring back Sirius, if she could bring back his parents… She shook her head, and Harry's face closed down, all traces of hope once again extinguished. "I can't… It's got to do with him being sent back… It's a bit like whatever damage he does gets fixed. Some of the damage to the buildings here was my fault, so I had to help it along a little. Ah well, better be going. I have some shopping to do-"

"What are you talking about?! You just fought with someone who just killed twelve people and all you can talk about is shopping?!" Harry was furious.

"Err… it's all back to normal… it as good as never happened. All you have that can tell you it happened are your memories, and perhaps the memory your wand kindly keeps of all the spells you've ever done." The girl walked off, then stopped again and turned around to face Harry. "And… thanks again, for the Patronus." She did a weird thing with her hands, and everyone gasped as she disappeared in a swirl of shadows. It was almost like Apparating, except that that creates a loud 'crack' sound, while whatever had just happened had been totally silent.

"What the hell is going on? She's a witch, who can use magic just like us, you know, with wands and stuff, but… she can do something else, like… like…" Ron struggled to find the right words, but Hermione beat him to it. "Like a different kind of magic? Yeah, I haven't read anything about anything like that…"

"Ron! Harry! Hermione! Are you alright?" Mrs Weasley came thundering down the path, Ginny in tow, the latter weighed down with several bags of shopping. As Mrs Weasley checked them all twice over for any signs of injury, the trio informed them about what had happened, and they realised that several reporters had snuck up behind them, taking down every word they said, and taking photographs of them. "Err… what are you doing?" Harry asked one of them, who seemed positively mortified and insulted at the question. "This is an exceptional story! This girl just brought back no less than twelve people from the dead, and she repaired the street without a wand, and you, you! You sent that man running! Do you have any comments?" As they clustered around them, constantly asking questions, Ron nudged Harry, pointing at someone standing at the end of the street, watching them.

All Harry could see was long, white blonde hair, which was enough to tell him the man's identity: it was Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father and Death Eater to Voldemort. He supposed that Lucius would inform Voldemort about the incident, and the latter would probably try and find the man and perhaps the girl as well, to try and recruit them to his cause. The five fought their way out of the pressing throng of reporters and curious bystanders, and managed to make it back to the Order of the Phoenix HQ.

"That was awful, how that dreadful man could just laugh at the girl! Do you remember what he said to her when she tried to summon a Patronus?" Hermione asked, horror evident in her voice. "You mean how she's never had a 'single happy moment'?" Harry asked heavily. "I mean, how is that possible? Surely she's had at least one happy moment in her life!"

They debated the topic that night, with all the members of the Order of the Phoenix that were present having heard about the incident mere hours after it had happened. Dinner was a rather unenjoyable affair, especially for Harry, Hermione and Ron, as their minds didn't seem to want to stop replaying the horrible squelching noises the bodies had made. Harry shuddered.

"Are you okay Harry, dear? All three of you look a bit pale… Perhaps you would like to go up to bed?" They took the chance to escape readily, hurrying up the stairs to their bedrooms. Harry lay down on his bed, his mind replaying the events over and over again, how he still thought the girl had been so… so callous, although not as bad as the man had been. She had been as horrified as Harry had been when she realised that the man had killed people…

He drifted off into a shallow dream-filled sleep, dreams of bodies and wriggling snakes and the mask the girl had been wearing telling him that it didn't believe in anything, that it was a nihilist. The girl also appeared in his dreams, unmasked though her face was in shadow. She spoke to him, but his ears couldn't seem to hear what she was saying, and as he fought to move nearer to her, the better to hear her, he felt something pulling him up into the sky above…

"Wake u-u-u-up, Harry and Ron! It's a beautiful day, the birds are singing and there isn't a cloud in sight!" Lupin called through the door. "Molly's making breakfast, and she wants you to know that if you don't hurry, you'll be late for the train!" As Harry stretched, he glanced at the calendar hanging across from him, that he brought with him eight weeks ago. "We're going back… We're going back!" Harry whooped, and dressed quickly, tearing down the calendar and crossing out the last day.

As he thundered down the stairs, he realised that he was feeling more carefree than he had been in two years, what with everything that had happened last year. He finally noticed that the house elf heads on the banister had been removed, and he also realised that no-one had mentioned Kreacher's name, nor had he seen him.

"Hey, I just realised. What happened to Kreacher?" He asked Ron. The latter reddened and looked down at his feet under the table, and a feeling of uneasiness settled onto Harry's shoulders, wiping away all vestiges of joy that had existed. "Umm… he's dead. I don't know how he died, but well… yeah…" Ron forestalled any more questions by delving into his breakfast, and hurried away as quickly as he could when he finished. Harry, who had not been intending to ask any more questions about Kreacher, was slightly puzzled as to Ron's behaviour, but while on the car trip to Kings' Cross, he realised why Ron had been acting so strangely. As they boarded the train, with Ron and Hermione heading to the Prefects' cabin to be assigned their duties and Harry, Ginny, Neville and Luna once again residing in the last compartment.

"How was your summer, Neville?" As they chatted, the conversation led once again to the fiasco that had occurred in Diagon Alley. "What happened? The newspapers said that you were there, and you helped the girl fight the man off!" Harry sighed, and wondered if there would ever be a day where people would ask him all these questions, always about this foe and that foe and how did he do it?