During dinner, where Tracey had asked for and received permission to join them from her father via floo, Harry found himself sitting next to Daphne while Tracey and Astoria sat opposite.
Cygnus and Isabel sat at either end of the table.
Throughout the courses, Tracey bombarded him near mercilessly about his life to that point.
Harry only said he was raised in the muggle world and gave some information about his experiences living as a muggle.
She also asked him why he’d decided to live for the last six weeks at The Leaky Cauldron.
And Harry said it was so he had ready access to material he could source to learn about life, and his place in it, in the wizarding world.
He explained about his first day back in the wizarding world from hopping off the Underground and walking into The Leaky Cauldron, to visiting Gringotts, learning of his heritage and the betrothal contract, generalisations of his letters from his parents, his experiences talking with the various shopkeepers, why he’d chosen to use an alias, and how he felt about everything.
In response, Harry asked questions about growing up in the wizarding world, what kids did for fun, asked about the rules governing underage magic, wondered why he hadn’t received a howler from that department when he was practicing the minor charms and cantrips he was using to conceal his identity – and was told it was because Diagon Alley couldn’t be monitored because there was too much magic in that small an area, and that the same restrictions couldn’t be applied to homes as heavily warded as the Greengrass Estate, asked about other methods of travel within the wizarding world besides floo travel; and generally gave as good as he got.
As dessert was being served Tracey flat-out asked him, to the shock of the Greengrasses, if he knew what really happened on the night of 31st October 1981.
So, Harry, as emotionlessly as possible, gave a full accounting of what he knew happened and when.
“But, that’s not what the books say!” exclaimed Tracey.
Harry gave a little snort of amusement and said, “I want you to think about this, for a minute or two. The only people present on that night were: James and Lily Potter, me, Voldemort,…” and heard a few gasps of shock at his casual mention of the name, but he ignored it,” … and apparently Sirius Black – though I did not really see him.
Of those people, only Sirius Black and I lived through the experience.
And Black was apparently sent directly to Azkaban.
That leaves only me.
“And, I can assure you, nobody has approached me to ask what happened on that night until you just did. That being the case, just where did all those writers get their information on which to base their books?” The entire table stopped to think about that for a little while.
“But, how do you remember so much?” she asked.
“As I explained to Isabel, Daphne and Astoria this afternoon, I have a very good memory, honed by meditation, and built upon by Occlumency.
I don’t want it bandied about…” he said, looking very directly at Tracey, “… You are reading on g.com, the official source. but I have what’s called an eidetic memory; perfect recall.
I remember everything that’s happened in my life excluding those periods when I was asleep or unconscious.” With a bit of a snort he said, “I even have what I feel are memories from when I was in the womb, and of my own birth.” With a bit of a shudder he said, “That particular memory I have stored back in the recesses of my mind and locked away in a mental safe.”
“Sweet Merlin!” exclaimed Cygnus.
Sitting forward, he asked, “Do you remember me?”
“Yes,” replied Harry.
“You visited my Mum and me in the hospital on what I think was the day after I was born.
You came in with Isabel…” he said indicating the lady at the other end of the table, “… and she was carrying a bundle of green blankets with silver trim in her left arm, from which I saw a small baby’s face with a dusting of fine blonde hair.”
He grinned at Daphne and said, “You were a very cute baby.”
Daphne just stared back in shock.
Turning back to Cygnus, he said, “You leaned over me and said to my Mum that I had her eyes.
I remember reaching out and grabbing you by a fistful of your goatee and giving it a bit of a yank.” Laughing, he continued, “The look on your face when I did that still makes me laugh.”
Isabel burst into laughter and said, “Yes, and he immediately shaved it off that night, and hasn’t had one since.”
Still in shock but also showing signs of amusement, Cygnus said, “It bloody hurt!” Leaning back he looked directly at Harry and said, “That’s an incredible ability, Harry. And, I think it’s wise of you not to want it spread about that you have it.”
Nodding, Harry said, “I think I have enough on my plate to deal with as the so-called Boy-Who-Lived. I don’t want to also be known as the Boy-Who-Remembers-Everything. Besides, once some of the teachers at my old muggle school found out I had perfect recall, their attitudes towards me changed. If I didn’t get perfect marks on exams that basically parroted information we already knew, they kind of scolded me and said they were disappointed. No one can be perfect all the time, and I was trying to hide my ability.”
“You would also have lots of kids coming to you for the answers to any questions on their school work they had,” said Daphne.
“I did,” nodded Harry.
“It didn’t take me long to realise I could earn a few pounds – muggle currency – by offering my services for a fee.
I don’t know if it’s right to tell you, but I used to have a small network of – agents – who would act as my intermediaries in selling my services to the rest of the student population.
I used to charge a fee based on the student’s year for my services in writing their assignments for them.
It also used to humour me that one of my biggest customers was my own cousin, Dudley.
“My agents would come to me in my space in the library, which everyone knew I had basically claimed as my own, with information on what the assignment was supposed to be about, and the fee charged. New chapters come out on novelping . com first.
I’d complete the assignment in the kid’s name and the agent would take it back to the student.
For their services as go-between I paid the agent a ten percent commission.
“The agents had two mandatory rules: Don’t tell anyone my identity, and never try to rip me off.
I used to use others to test the honesty of the agents.
It took me only having to sack two of them for the others to know I found out who was ripping me off pretty quickly.
During the whole time I was doing that, only two of my agents were ever busted by the teachers, and neither of them ratted me out.
And none of the teachers ever figured out I was the one doing the assignments.
“It was the money I raised doing that for the last couple years of my muggle schooling that I used to buy school supplies for myself and, ultimately, used to get myself on public transport from my relatives’ house to The Leaky Cauldron on that first day.”
By the time Harry finished his short tale of questionable legal acts in heading his own minor crime syndicate, Cygnus was roaring with laughter.
“Harry James Potter!” he crowed.
“Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter; Secretly Head of a Petty Criminal Organisation!” And started roaring with laughter again.
“Well, I wasn’t actually doing anything illegal,” Harry said a bit sheepishly.
“What I would do was always write using a yellow legal pad for the paper and in green ink. Each page was also stamped with the notation ‘Sample Only’ top and bottom. If it ever did end up getting back to me I knew I could always claim I was only writing a sample assignment for the student. How was I to know they’d rewrite it in their own hand on their own paper and submit it under their own name? I could have even claimed the student plagiarised me. Besides, who could ever really believe that a third or fourth grade student was writing top line assignments for a sixth grade student? Especially one who, through his own grades, was a pretty poor student.”
Cygnus was still laughing.
He even had tears in his eyes.
“Are you – are you sure you’re not bound for Slytherin?” he chuckle asked.
“Nah!” replied a grinning Harry.
“Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Then I’ll work at secretly taking over the school hidden within the House of the Ravens or Badgers using cunning and guile. No one will ever suspect me. Mwa ha ha.”
That just set Cygnus off again.