I'm A Slave For You-Chp17

I'M A SLAVE FOR YOU

Harry looked around Albus' office curiously. It was the first time he had been to the school where his Master worked, and now that he was with Albus his new Master (he had wished to be in Severus' office instead of here), he could've sworn he had never seen so many books in his life.

Getting acquainted with Albus alone was a tough one. Despite the fact that Albus was trying hard to be nice to him, he couldn't help but being wary about him. Experience taught him that nothing is what it seems, and he had a bit of a hard time trusting the old man. It just didn't feel right to be with other people knowing that he would not have Severus to return to. He kept a considerable distance from Albus as soon as he woke up from the effects of the sleeping spell, refusing to answer any of Albus' questions and didn't want to have any eye contact with him all the way to the school. Even when the old man offered him a sherbet lemon, he didn't want to take it. He was not letting his guard down and not taking any chances.

Once they reached the school, Harry was bombarded with a lot of new things around him. For starters, he had never seen a castle before, especially when his impression of Severus' work building was definitely not the size of a ancient medieval building. Secondly, he had never seen so many kids around his age, and others slightly older than him, walking around chit-chatting with each other as if it was the normal thing to do. Occasionally they would cast their gaze at him, but they more or less left him alone while he was walking side by side with Albus. Instinctively he reached for a hand to grab for security, and he hadn't realized that he had been holding Albus' hand until he had reached Albus' office after walking past other teachers, the mean old caretaker Mr. Filch and his pet cat Mrs. Norris, a couple of ghosts (which scared the hell out of him) including Nearly Headless Nick and Bloody Baron, and the poltergeist Peeves (who tickled his ribs as it passed him).

"I'm glad you're acquainted here," Albus smiled at him. "Now, your room is through here," he pointed towards the far end of the left where there was a small dark-green door right between two smaller shelves of books that were marked 'Magic Sociology' and 'Ancient Magical Laws', "I will tell you what else chores you need to do as we go, but in the meantime, you are to keep this office and our rooms—I'll show you where's mine later—and help out whenever I need you to, alright?"

Harry nodded obediently. Then he saw a huge reddish-yellowish orange bird that was perched just right beside Albus' work desk. He wanted to reach over and pet it but was afraid that the bird would peck his eyes out or something. Fortunately it eyed him with interest as well before leaning down its head to allow him to pet it.

"This is Fawkes, my phoenix," Albus said. "Looks like he has taken an interest to you. Go on, you can pet him. He's very friendly."

Harry smiled and reached up to pet Fawkes. Fawkes leaned in to touch beak with his nose, making him giggle.

"Well, I must go and talk to a few students. Be good while I am away, alright, child?"

Harry nodded and continued to play with Fawkes. Albus, after making sure that Harry was alright alone, walked off his office to find the speech teacher and reading and writing teacher for Harry.

And he knew just the right person to look for.

--:--

Ronald Bilius Weasley and Hermione Jean Granger are in the school library doing their assignments. It was almost the mid-term and they were swamped with mid-term assignments that probably piled up all the way above their eyebrows, and Hogwarts' most renowned couple were there wrecking their brains out trying to answer all the tough questions given mercilessly by their professors. Well, at least one of them was actually wrecking his brains out. The other was all smooth sailing as she finished her second last piece of homework for the day.

This couple was no stranger in Hogwarts. They were known as the 'Old Married Couple' of Hogwarts because they behaved like one, even though they were only engaged to each other. Technically they were childhood friends due to the fact that their parents were very close business liaisons. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were professional Muggle dentists and they work part-time as an information provider for Mr. Weasley's job as a member in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. According to some of Ron's many extended relatives recollecting their nostalgia during a family gathering to celebrate Ron and Hermione being sorted to the Gryffindors, the meeting between the Grangers and the Weasleys was pure coincidence when Arthur Weasley—Ron's father—was on a mission along with a few Aurors to arrest a fellow wizard who stole an M-16 from the artifact office to try it out on Muggle civilians and just so happened to pick the Grangers' clinic as a target practice. They managed to arrest the wizard before he hurt more people and spared the Grangers from turning Hermione into an orphan.

The next time they met, Dillian and Veronica Granger—Hermione's parents—were at the park reminiscence the incident that happened at their clinic when they saw their little girl squabbling with a little redhead boy named Ron about the lollipop she was eating and soon came across Arthur and Molly Weasley, and the rest of their friendship was history. Arthur taught Dillian and Veronica how to spot and differentiate between wizards and Muggles and they helped him to provide him with information about Muggle items and any wizard or witches who may be misusing Muggle items to do the world harm, and their children Ron and Hermione were as close as peas and carrots. It was Ron who discovered that Hermione was a Muggle-born when she levitated a chair quite by accident when they were 9 and helped her through adapting life as a witch. Seeing that they were inseparable, the Granger family and the Weasley family decided that they should get engaged on their 12th birthday. The kids were both rather apprehensive about this and obliged to this proposition out of respect for their parents at first, but as they continued on life as an engaged couple in Hogwarts, they slowly developed romantic feelings for each other, and when Ron defended Hermione when Draco called her a Mudblood and rescued her when Viktor Krum—Durmstrang's representative during the Triwizard Tournament (in which Hogwarts won, by the way, thanks to Cedric Diggory) during their 4th year—tried to sneak his way into Hermione's pants, Hermione knew that he was the only man she was willing to spend the rest of her life with.

"Mione," Ron voiced out, scratching his head trying to figure a way out of the Divination subject. "How do you describe a catastrophe that happens when Venus and Saturn aligns?"

Hermione shrugged, "I never took that subject. It is not very logical. Just come up with something. She is always predicting your death anyway. Why do you even take that awful subject?"

"Because I think it's fun to try and predict the future. I was hoping that I would be able to predict," Ron lowered his voice for this, "how many kids we're gonna have."

"Very funny, Ron," Hermione blushed as she threw the cap of the ink bottle at him, barely hitting his chest. "One thing's for sure, I will not consider having kids until I make it into becoming a Minister in the Ministry."

"High ambitions, don't you? Alright, then I'll write 'Prof. Snape will have an accident in the lab, causing him to sprout out hideous boils and die drowning in his pus'. How's that?"

"Ron!" Hermione scolded, but could hardly stop laughing at Ron's so-called prediction. Madame Pince had to hush her to keep her in line.

"Hey, that'll teach him to take off my points just because I forgot to sprinkle the garlic dust into my potions last week."

"Yes, but you did turn your eyebrows multi-colour for an hour after that explosion, and sent almost half the class home with every hair on their bodies, including you-know-where, into rainbows that lasted for a week."

"Well, yeah…but that's not the point," Ron grumbled, scribbling down his 'prediction' anyway. "Point is he's being a git, and I'm getting back at him."

"Sure, Ron, whatever you say," Hermione rolled her eyes in defeat.

"Good afternoon. Studying hard, kids?"

Hermione and Ron looked up to see Albus Dumbledore, their Headmaster, looking over their shoulder with his usual grandfatherly smile. They smiled back at him.

"Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore." Hermione made way for him to sit down, in which Albus politely declined.

"Hi there, sir. What brings you here?" Ron asked.

"Well, I'd like you to meet someone," Albus replied. "Why don't you kids come with me to my office?"

"Sure," Hermione replied as he put her books in her bag.

"Aye aye, cap'n," Ron followed suite and quickly followed behind Albus. Any excuse is a pretty good excuse to skip homework. Hermione also followed behind him.

Meanwhile, Harry stared at all the books in the shelves in the office, with Fawkes perched nicely on his shoulder. He and the phoenix had gotten acquainted quite well and seemed as if they were old friends. Fawkes had even sort of introduced Harry to the Sorting Hat by bringing it down for him to play with. Of course, the old bag of cloth and fabric didn't like being manhandled without a reason and Harry was horrified to see a hat that can talk, but overall, Harry adjusted rather quickly and even tried the hat on. The Sorting Hat was surprised that Harry didn't have the academic qualifications in his mind to be sorted and was rather overwhelmed by the complex mentality and child-like personality he had due to his traumatic past, but it deduced by whatever he could muster from Harry's head that he would probably suited to be Slytherin.

"Harry, I have brought you some visitors."

Harry turned to see Albus leading two teens who were about Draco's age into the office. He quickly cowered back a little at the sight of them, his heart thumping wildly as he wondered whether he was going to be switched masters again.

"Jumpy little fella, ain't he?" Ron commented.

"He looks kinda cute," Hermione smiled.

"Don't be scared, Harry. Come here," Albus gestured him to come closer. "These are friends."
Harry gave him a 'Not new Masters?' look.

"Just friends, Harry, don't worry. This is Ms. Hermione Granger and Mr. Ronald Weasley."

"Hi, kid," Ron greeted good-naturedly while Hermione waved and gave him a reassuring look.

Harry slowly came closer to the trio. As Ron and Hermione held out their hands to shake, Harry couldn't help studying them from head to toe. His impression on Ron was a rather geeky-looking kid who had the reddest hair he had ever seen and probably was attacked by a freckles epidemic. The redhead looked almost unsure about himself, but at the same time, he was very friendly and seemed to be quite approachable enough. His impression on Hermione, on the other hand, was a beautiful, smart-looking young lady who would probably win some sort of beauty pageant contest, only that her intelligent looks were much more dominant and totally beat the theory of 'brawn without brains'. He began to like them already, but to Hermione a little bit more.

"Children, this is Harry Potter," Albus introduced Harry to the couple. "From now on, he will be my personal slave and will be doing the menial work around Hogwarts alongside with the hired help. Ms. Granger, I was hoping you could be Harry's speech coach while he is here. Sadly, due to his unfortunate upbringing when he was still with his Muggle relatives, he had a speech impediment. He can only say a select few words, so it's going to be a little hard trying to communicate with him unless he at least knows the basic of normal conversation."

"Well, sure, I guess," Hermione replied. "I have most of my assignments done anyway. I think I can spare the time to teach him."

"What can you say, Harry?" Ron tried to test the boy out.

"Mah!" Harry smiled widely.

"That, I believe, would mean 'Master'," Albus noted.

"Anything else?" Ron asked.

Harry thought for a while, then grinned and said, "Fuck!"

"Well, that is not a good word to say in public, Harry," Hermione blushed in the midst of an awkward-looking fiancé and an amused old Headmaster.

Harry giggled and said another word he had perfected from his Master's teaching, "Love."

"Well, that's a nice word to learn," Ron grinned. "At least he got this word right."

"Much better than the other one," Hermione noted. "Any other words?"

Harry thought again for a moment before saying, "Bai-bai."

"Bloody hell, he's a tough one!" Ron groaned.

"Well, basically he has as much speech as a baby starting to talk," Hermione came to a conclusion to Harry's condition. "We will have to start with the basics."

"Oh boy," Ron rolled his eyes. "Does he even know how to read and write?"

"No, he does not, I'm afraid," Albus replied. "Like I said, he had a rather…unfortunate upbringing."

"Bloody hell! We're really going to have to start from the basics beyond the basics."

"Picture cards," Hermione suddenly suggested after being silent for a moment.

"Picture cards?" Ron asked, curious.

"When I was a kid, I learned from cards that had a picture on it. First Mother would show me a picture card, then she would say the word and made me repeat after her. Soon I began matching the word with the picture and learnt the word by seeing the real thing."

"So we're gonna use the Muggle way to teach him, Mione?"

"Well, I don't know how wizards learn, Ron. Want to put your input in?" Hermione gave him a sideways glance, her arms folded across her chest. Harry looked from back to forth, listening in to their conversation (bickering was more like it).

"Aw, c'mon, Mione. I was just saying. I meant no offense. It should work, I guess. We just learn what our mothers teach us, reading the ABCs. It's standard procedure."

"Oh yeah? What was your first word then?"

"I can't remember that far back!" Ron said, flailing his arms in the air in exasperation.

"OK, never mind. Wrong thing to ask. You have the memory span of a goldfish anyway."

Ron glared at her with an angry pout at that retort. Hermione flashed him a "You're too old to pout, Ron" bored look, in which Ron shot a "Yeah, whatever" look back at her. Harry giggled at their wordless bickering. He found it amusing that they could communicate with each other with just the look on their faces. It kinda reminded him of how he communicated with Severus.

"Alright now, children. Settle down," Albus tried to break the bickering couple up, understanding now the full extent of why they earned the title 'Old Married Couple' by their fellow peers. "So, Ms. Granger, I assume that you accept the role of Harry's speech teacher?"

"Yes, sir," Hermione nodded. "It sounds like it would be nice."

"Then, Mr. Weasley, I would like you to be Harry's reading and writing teacher, along with Ms. Granger's help, of course."

"Me??" Ron exclaimed in horror. "Why me??"

"I understand you used to help your sister Ginny to read and write."

"Yes, but that's because Mother made me…" Ron's protest was cut short by Albus' clap on his back.

"Then it's settled then."

Hermione laughed at the way Ron screwed up his face in annoyance before continuing, "When should we start, sir?"

"I think we'll start as soon as you write to your parents asking for your teaching materials. Once you've got them, you can start teaching Harry everyday after classes except on weekends. For now, you can help me show him around school, let him familiarize with the place. I haven't had the time to do so. You know how it is with my line of work, so I'd appreciate it if you do me this favour. Remember to bring him back here when you're done, though. I'm sure you've just heard my password to my office by now."

"Sure, Headmaster," Hermione turned to Harry and asked, "Want to go see the grounds, Harry?"

Harry nodded eagerly with a grin. Hermione held out her hand, in which Harry took it gladly as he had begun to take a liking to her. Ron got a little jealous at Harry for holding his fiancée's hand and went forward to hold Harry's other hand.

"C'mon then, lad. Let's go. We've got lots to show you."

Harry giggled and followed them out of the office, leaving a grinning Albus watching Hermione and Ron looking like parents taking their child on a trip to the park.