[Charles]

Comment by Author:
So I decided to write a Harry Potter fanfic outside the canon and characters we're all familiar with. Why? I'm not really a big fan of changing characters in fanfic. To this end I created a story set in the Universe but in America and with all new characters and a new culture. I'm doing this as a break from original writing. I'll be honest, this is more an excercise to test character building, certain creativity in world building, and experiments with prose than a serious work.



Prelude:

A heavily robed figure bent over a contraption of glass pipes, cauldrons, and beakers. It would spring to life spontaneously, performed some small task, quickly stopped, only to begin the process seconds later. The bangs and clangs of the machine were loud, but compared to the ones outside the room, they rang out to no one's attention. The figure stood up straight and stepped back, each step slow and determined. The figure's eyes followed a gold tinged glass pipe that led several feet away from the contraption. Blue and purple gas poured from the tip, dissipating as it hit the ground.

Screams, shouting, and explosions were dulled by the thick doors and thick walls that have been customized for security, but it was clear that time was growing short. Since they were discovered and the assault had begun, each explosion felt a little closer and grew a little louder. Each explosion was an indication that more men and women have died for this experiment. It was shaping up to be a hopeless experiment at this point. The thought wasn’t vocalized, but other robed men and women that sat at the large desks in the room were watching the flashing lights and numbers materializing on the desks could not help but show signs of the fact they were all coming to realize. One woman, a younger one with a round face and dark hair streaked with purple showed the faint traces of tears from her brown eyes that have been quickly wiped away. A man with a long face framed by long, blond hair sat at another console. He still had determination in his eyes, but was biting his lip so hard, he must have been close to drawing blood. A few were holding it together a bit better, but it was clear on a portly gray haired man's face, on another young woman's heart shaped face, on a balding, lanky man's face that hope was all but extinguished.

A particularly big explosion shook the room slightly, and the figure that had been hovering around the monster of twists and turns shifted to face the few men guarding the door. One man with a large scar from the right side of his chin up to his scalp looked at the figure. The man pursed his lips and nodded. He looked at two of the men on his left. He made a motion with his hand, and they pushed their robes back revealing thin sticks on their right sides. One pulled it out of the slot in his belt, while the other merely placed his right hand on it. The man with the scar looked over at a younger man that shared his tall and muscular stature, short brown hair, and angular face. His visage appeared to tighten up for a moment. The younger man with a calm demeanor conflicted by watery eyes looked back and nodded. The man waved the piece of wood over the door. It slid open.

The sounds of battle swelled in volume as the three men walked out with determined looks on their faces. The man with the scar began to yell orders, but his voice were cut off as the door slid shut. At this, the young woman who had been wiping away her tears began to openly cry into her hands. After a moment of balling loudly, she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see the face of the robed man. He had let down the cowl of his robe, revealing his face. He was a pudgy man with long gray hair. The lights accentuated the lines in his face, showing heavy creases at the sides of his lips. His eyes were bright green. His expression appeared blank, but as he look woman felt her eyes move to his and his to hers, he gave a small smile.The man looked up to see all the people in the room looking at him. He looked back to her.

“Don’t give up,” he said quietly. His words came at the same time silence appeared to fall outside, allowing all to hear this. His voice was gentle but there was a confidence behind it. Trustworthy. Honest. A moment passed and the woman, began to calm down. She eventually breathed in deep, holding her breath, waiting a moment, and then exhaling slowly. She nodded to him. He looked out towards the few men and women left, and each felt a calm bringing down the fear that had been beating inside each of their chests.

A young, tall black man with thick glasses on the other side of the room moved his head from the left to the right of the room, placed his hands on the desk, and stoop up looking back at the man, his jaw set. He gave the older man a nod. The others began to stand as well. Their faces mirroring the determination of the first man. The young woman who had broken down stood up last, her eyes flashed with a strength that had not been there before. She spoke.

"We won't."

A light began to flash against the wall. The man looked at it and frowned. He walked over to the wall and raised his hand. He hesitated slightly before giving it a wave. A handsome middle aged man appeared on the wall wearing formal black robes.

“This is Chancellor Talis Nova of these Magical United States. We have you surrounded. You must surrender and submit to this government. We are now in complete control. The Monarchy is over. Now is the time for you people to give up. William Caulandis, your time as Headmaster and Minister has ended. The people have spoken.” The face softened from its severity. “Why do you fight against the will of the people? So many have died. None of your other people must die. We can re-educate you to see the benefit of our new democracy.” At the thought of this the man appeared to shed out of his requesting tone. “If you do not surrender in five minutes, we will break through the rest of your defense, and we will have no choice but to kill you. We have already captured or killed the majority of you loyalists. There’s no point to continue fighting. You have five minutes.”

The man’s face disappeared from the wall. The robed man, William Caulandis, looked to the few people left in the room. He breathed in and spoke softly.

“You heard our new leader. You may submit to re-education still. If you wish to leave, you may.” None of the people standing at their desks moved. “Very well. We have maybe ten minute-“

A loud explosion rang out and a din grew once again. “I suppose they’re choosing not to keep to their promises. I am not entirely surprised. I suppose we only have a couple of minutes. I will prepare to break the barrier, so we may still escape with our information.”

Caulandis walked over to the wall and held his right hand up. He closed his eyes and began to wave it in a small clockwise circle. A couple of minutes seemed to pass when a loud bang rang out in the room as if someone was ramming the door. Caulandis began waving a little faster until it appeared that his hand his a solid surface. He rested the palm of his hand against it, and drew out a long rod on his left side. He raised his hand to eye level. Another bang rang out. Caulandis looked at the machine. It was beginning to spout gold now as well.

“Calo, prepare to grab the read out,” Caulandis ordered. The tall, muscular man jogged to the end of the pipe. The bangs on the door began to increase now. Quicker and quicker until they were coming every few seconds. Caulandis began to yell, so they could hear him. “Everyone prepare to apparate to the rendezvous point! I will break their barrier as soon as Calo absorbs the message.”

The machine let out a bang, and a cloud of Purple came out of the end of the pipe. Instead of falling to the ground, it hung in the air, letters shining in gold:

HOUSE: WODEN
BORN: NOVEMBER 1st 1993.
TO: WILHELM and MARIE

For a moment Calo stared at it before shaking himself back into focus. This is what they had been waiting for. He pulled out a rod of his own and waved it muttering words. The cloud began to be sucked into the rod, vibrating it.

Caulandis drew back the rod in his hand before stabbing it forward, apparently hitting a resistance. Caulandis appeared to be held. Caulandis's face vibrated with focus, pushing even harder, and the rod moved forward several inches. Caulandis than waved his arm in a full circle and yelled.

“It’s broken!” Caulandis yelled. A particularly loud bang rang through the room, and the door burst open. All of the people inside the room took sticks out of their robes and raised them above their heads disappearing with a pop as red and green streams of light filled the spaces where they had once been.

[Lord Murphy]

This is pretty good. I think that you should keep it up. I always wanted HP to be in the US.

[Charles]

Chapter 1: Little Boxes

At seven in the morning on the twenty third of August at 2953 Fletcher Street, a light appeared from behind the windows of a peach colored mid sized bungalow. At nearly the same time at nearly identical looking peach colored bungalows, the glow of lights came out dully from behind their curtained windows. After an hour and thirty minutes, nearly to the second, the white garage doors swung up revealing nearly matching vehicles. White and tidy, the cars backed out of their drive ways and set off towards the city. In each car sat a productive man set on producing.

In the bungalows, the wives of these men prepared for their day ahead. At 2953, a woman turned on a stove, set a pan upon it, and laid some bacon inside. As it began to crackle, she walked towards the left wing’s hallway through the open space connecting the living room to the kitchen, past framed pictures, over a sleeping dog, and around a vacuum. She knocked on the first door on the right. She called out softly as she cracked open the door.

“Gabriel? Time to get up. Breakfast.” Her voice was soothing and pleasant. She opened the door a bit wider and looked at the boy laying face down on the twin bed inside. He stirred slightly. She shut the door behind her, and walked back to the kitchen.

Gabriel, or Gabe as he was known by everyone but his parents, took a deep breath and stretched out, extending his legs and arms, then exhaling as he relaxed. He still had the small stature of a boy who had not yet entered his growth spurt. His face was oval, and still had a touch of baby fat with a complexion that was a little pale, but only just a touch. His hair was dark brown, wavy and messy, even though it was only a few inches long all around. His eyes opened slightly to reveal grayish blue eyes. The same as his fathers, and from what his mother had told him, his father’s father. Overall, he felt as though he was the definition of an average looking eleven year old. If there was a film casting for nondescript eleven year old kids, he was certain he’d get the part. The only thing that could tell him apart is a birthmark he had at the base of the inside of his forearm. It was a nearly perfect circle of a slightly dark shade than the rest of his skin.

He grabbed the sheets and pulled them off to his side revealing blue pajamas, nearly the exact same color as his blue sheets. He rolled onto his left side and swung his legs off the side of his bed. He pushed himself up into a sitting position. His legs hung above the ground, not yet tall enough for them to touch. He closed his eyes tight and rubbed them before opening them wide and blinked a few times. Like his appearance he had an average room. An average desk, an average dresser, and an average collection of books, toys, and clothes that were littered around the room. It was nearing the end of the week, which meant he would have to go through his weekly cleaning, as it was stacking up a bit. His school work from Elementary school stood in a pile. He was finally moving on to middle school in a week. Not much longer to high school after that. He pushed it out his mind. He still had a week of summer, and he was determined to enjoy it.

He smelled the bacon, and felt the morning pangs of hunger. He slid off the bed and walked out of his room towards the kitchen barefoot. He walked around the vacuum, stopped to pet the family dog, Bart, a German Shepherd, and past the pictures of his family, pictures of him as a baby, pictures of him playing baseball, pictures of him as his graduation a couple months before. He walked to the table right outside the kitchen, pulled out one of the chairs, and sat down as his mother brought him eggs, bacon, and a bagel.

“Good morning, Gabriel.” She spoke in a singsong voice as she laid down the plate. Mary Woden was a pretty woman that was in her late 30s or early 40s. She was fairly tall for a woman with a slightly pale complexion like her son. Her hair was long and light brown that framed her oval face, also like her son. Instead of his grayish blue eyes, she had hazel eyes.

“Morning, mom,” he responded groggily, grimacing at her unflappable cheeriness at early hours. The pitch was still fairly high as his voice hadn't broken yet.

“Go ahead and eat up. I’m going to go get the mail.” Gabe looked down at his food for a moment. He really was never much of a breakfast person, but his mother was certainly much of a cooking person. Whenever Gabe asked how she learned how to cook, she would always respond her mother, but would never explain any further than that. Gabe never really could get much out of his parents regarding their parents. Apparently they were all dead. His father had claimed that his father died in Vietnam and his mother shortly thereafter. His mother had claimed that her father and mother and both died in a car accident. It had made for an awkward history assignment last year when Gabe was supposed to talk to one of his grandparents about how things were when they were in fifth grade. Gabe usually just let it go though. His parents’ parents must have been good people. His parents were certainly good people.

His mother had returned. She was flippping through the first couple pieces of mail as Gabe had moved from staring at his food to poking at it slightly, getting closer and closer to actually eating it. She sat down next to him.

“You should eat up before it gets cold, sweetie,” she told him with a slight demanding tone. Gabe took an obligatory bite to appease her. Seeing this, she turned her attention back to the mail. She began to sort it into piles, trash, subscriptions, bills, and so on. Gabe looked at the bagel, and decided cream cheese would improve this situation. He looked up at his mother to ask her if they had any, but was surprised to see her staring at the last letter in the pile, both of her hands shaking slightly as she gripped it. Her eyes wide as she stared.

“What’s that?” He asked, confused by his mother's demeanor. His mother's head jerked up in surprise, her son's voice breaking the apparent trance. She shook her head. Gabe thought she looked as though she were trying to shake out her own thoughts. As she did this she answered, speaking quickly.

“It’s nothing. Nothing...Bills.” She added unconvincingly. His mother walked away from the kitchen table to the outside of the kitchen counter where the phone, fax machine, and paper shredder were with the note clutched in her right hand. She quickly turned on the shredder and put the letter through with a little trouble as her hand was still shaking slightly. Gabe's eyes followed her closely as she went. His mother was rarely flustered. Both of them watched the letter go through the shredder, his mother's lips pursed and brows lowered, Gabe, standing now, his eyes jumping from the shredder to his mother and back again.

The shredder finally reached the end of the letter. As the last strand glided down into the wastebasket, all of the pieces of the letter exploded in a purple flame. His mother jumped backwards with a small cry and spun around, her back to where the purple flame had just been, her eyes narrowed and scanning the living room and kitchen. Her right hand moved to her hip where she grabbed at an empty space on her side. After a moment of grabbing at the air around the side of her hip, she seemed frozen in place, and suddenly she pulled her hand up to her chest as though it had been burned. She grabbed the phone from behind her, but still kept her back to it. Gabe was uncertain whether or not he should be scared. He called out to his mother.

“What is it, mom? What’s going on?” His voice had a slight tremor.

She held her index finger up to him and gave him a warning look to be quiet. She pressed the buttons on the keypad with her thumb. When finished she held it up to her mouth and spoke with firm tone...like a military order.

“Come home right now. They’ve found us.” As soon as the words left her mouth, the door bell rang.

[Loki84]

I like it. You've go me interested to see who or for that matter, what, found Gabriel and his family. Keep it up good sir, keep it up.

[MOSES]

I agree with loki, I've very curious about what's going to happen next.

[Charles]

Chapter 1: Continued

For a second it appeared that all noise had gone from the world. Gabriel, uncertainty etched on his face, had jumped at the sound of the doorbell, but the silence that followed seemed impenetrable, as if any noise would cause him to shatter. His decision had been made. Scared was the correct reaction, and he was certainly feeling it now. He looked at his mother, seeing her put the phone down, and she began walking to the door. Her movements were automatic at this point, almost robotic. Gabriel wanted to call out to her. He wanted his mother to assure him that nothing was wrong like she had under previous, much less serious appearing circumstances that had frightened him. He choked out a kind of moan, but his mother was already looking through the peep hole in the door. She turned to the left, and stared into the wall for a moment, almost appearing to look through it. Gabriel looked where she was quickly, seeing the same old painting of a castle nestled in a mountain range in the twilight. A bright light on one of the towers seemed to flicker. Gabriel shook his head and looked back at his mother.

The movement of his head had roused her from the kind of trance she appeared to be in. She looked at him, and he was surprised to see her eyes, watery, as if on the brink of tears. The color in her face had drained, and her face seemed set and stiff.

"Gabriel. Go to your room." She said, her mouth barely moving but her voice wavering.

Gabriel wanted to protest. As scared as he was, he did not want to leave his mother in this state, but the longer his mother looked at him, the less and less he resisted the desire to try and stay with her. Still not moving though, his mother voice came out a bit more direct this time and her face appeared to slack enough to give her an expression that he should listen.

"Now, Gabriel."

He frowned, but he took a couple of steps regardless. She turned back to face the door, and Gabriel could see her hands clenched. Feeling helpless, he wrenched his eyes away from her. Gabriel headed towards the hall, past the vacuum, dog, and pictures. Once he got to his door, he had a moment of resistance. His curiosity battled his desire to do what his mother wanted. His concern for her resurfaced, and his desire to turn back rose higher. Before he could make a decision, he heard the door unlock and open. Though not able to hear the words, he heard a man's voice. A silence dragged on until Gabriel's mother finally broke it with a barely audible murmur. Gabriel heard the man's voice as the door closed and it become a little louder as, Gabriel assumed, he entered the house and walked a little further inside. Some of the words began to make sense.

"Apologize...you know...long...the time." The man's voice was weary but ended definitively and with clear seriousness. His mother did not respond. There was another long pause. Gabriel's mind began to process. His mother had not yelled. The man had not yelled. There was no sounds of violence. This can't be so bad, can it? He asked himself. Convincing himself of this, he began to edge closer. He was rewarded for his daring to hear the man speak again.

"You must have expected this? Caulandis himself had to take part, but you must have expected it would either be us or them that discovered the spark inside. You must have." He spoke the last part with such certainty that Gabriel's mother couldn't contain herself anymore.

"Must we? Must we, Thomas?" His mother's voice, while still quavering slightly, had a note of anger towards it. "We did what we had to. We got our family out. If Daniel had done the same, he might still be here." She said the last part bitterly. "There's no reason it'd be any different now, and we certainly don't want him involved in your lost cause."

Another pronounced silence followed this statement. Thomas once again was the first to break it. This time, it was his voice that quavered softly.

"Daniel did what he thought was right." There was a moment before continuing. "You don't understand though. The cause is, as you say, lost. They won. We have given up. I'm actually a Professor now at Argam. If that doesn't show reconciliation, what does?" There was certainly a dull quality to his voice. His tone raised at the end, despite not really sounding like he was asking a question. His mother responded quickly.

"So all is forgotten and forgiven? The camps did that to you, I presume." His mother asked him. Her voice still held that small note of anger, but this time Gabriel heard something different. It felt similar to when his mother scolded him for doing something where he could hurt himself.

"No. I never went to the camps. The same can't be said for Calo...or Juliet. In fact, Calo's still there. They never knew my involvement, and even so the blanket pardon covered me anyway."
"Not so large a blanket considering there are still prisoners," his mother said softly.
"Well, you know Calo. When they offered him the pardon he attempted to shove it down Balifis's throat." A sad laugh came from his mother and Thomas at the thought of this. An uncomfortable silence followed, and Gabriel edged a little closer.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the large screeching of car breaks outside. He heard a car door slam, heavy footsteps, and the front door open so quickly it swung into the wall with a loud bang. There was a moment where Gabriel bit his lip to prevent himself from yelling out. He backed away a few steps, still struggling to hear, but it was rendered pointless by a loud yell.

"You! Get out!" It was the voice of Gabriel's father.
"Wait! Wait! Bill, stop! You have to hear me out!" Thomas called out.
"I refuse!" Gabriel heard a small scuffle, assuming his father was pushing the man out the door.
"They're going to come here. They know about your son. You need to let me take him!" It felt like being punched in the stomach. Their son? Gabriel thought. But that's...me. Gabriel couldn't help it now. He walked towards the living room, the pull of his involvement being too strong to get him to think clearly. As he peered from the hallway into the living room, he looked into the corner to see where the front door was to finally see the man named Thomas. He was tall and slender with long blond hair, and was wearing robes instead of pants and a shirt like his father who was pushing the man out the door. The man's large doleful eyes met Gabriel's as he was pushed out, and froze, his eyes widened and stopped struggling against Gabriel's father. Whether the man's face was full of wonder or surprise, Gabriel could not tell. Gabriel stared back at him, his eyes just as wide. No longer feeling any resistance, Gabriel's father turned to see what the man was looking at. Seeing his father's head turn, Gabriel disappeared behind the wall, uncertain if his father had seen him. Gabriel heard the scuffling continue from behind the wall until his father started yelling at the man again.

"And never come here again," were the last word Gabriel's father shouted before Gabriel heard the door slam shut. Gabriel hurried back to his room, stumbling over his sleeping dog before getting to his room, and shutting his door. He began going over what had happened in his mind. He only had a moment to do so before his door opened again, his father and mother standing in the hallway. Gabriel avoided his father's eyes, instead picking to stare at the 2nd button down on his father's shirt. His father spoke.

"Gabriel, I need to talk to you."