Harry Potter: Keeper of the Lost Cities (crossover)

Improved Sight

"Harry Foster, wake up!" The voice was accompanied by a loud hammering on the door.

Harry begrudgingly began to untangle his mind from dreams, and for a moment, he thought that he was at Privet Drive, in his cupboard under the stairs. Only when he realized that the insistent voice was female did the events of the last two days come rushing back. Hermione Granger. Light leaping. The Lost Cities. The Councillors. Being invited to stay- perhaps permanently- at Everglen.

"Harry!" Hermione repeated sharply.

"Ugh! Good morning already," Harry responded, forcing himself up.

"You haven't forgotten about your errands today, have you?"

"Of course not!"

Harry had, actually. He was supposed to meet with a Physician that morning at Everglen- something about needing a detox and human pollution messing with him. Afterwards, Alden was taking him to Eternalia, to see a Descryer- apparently it was an elvish ability about seeing potential- and to Atlantis to go shopping.

When there were no more loud knocks on his door, Harry pulled on his only other outfit, and made a feeble attempt at taming his wild hair. Then he followed Hermione downstairs, to the much less formal, second dining room.

Post breakfast, Della, Hermione's mother, dragged Harry up to the family parlor, where she insisted that she had a gift for him.

"I know you're to go shopping today, but there is no way I am allowing a child under my care to go walking around wearing... that..."

Harry's cheeks reddened. "It's the only thing I have."

"Not anymore," Della told him cheerfully.

In the center of the parlor, resting on the softest, yet most elegant rug ever, was a mountain of clothes.

"I only bought the essentials of course, so you will still have plenty to do later. I have no idea if I guessed your size right, but if I didn't we can send everything back."

Della wandered over to the pile, blinking in and out of sight as she moved. Her ability was called Vanishing, and Harry wasn't sure he would ever get used to someone disappearing like that. The sparkling teal gown she wore didn't help his dizziness either. The graceful elf blinked out of sight and when she was visible again, she was holding a dark blue jerkin with gold embroidery.

"What about this? The gold will complement your unique eyes nicely."

"What's so special about my eyes?" Harry asked, not responding to her question.

Della vanished, reappearing next to the boy.

"All elves have blue eyes. Except you. Yours are brown. Which is why the jerkin will look so nice with the gold flecks in them!"

"Okay," Harry answered. Della's revelation had given him something to think about. He also had a feeling that he would learn several more strange things within the next few hours.

He waited in the reception hall/living room until the Physician came. The fancy clothes felt so strange after wearing Dudley's rags all his life. Harry even stood up to look in the mirror, startled to find that he looked almost... handsome.

He had just sat back down, when Hermione led the Physician in.

"Hello, Mr. Foster. I am Lady Poppy Pomfrey." she said. Lady Poppy's caramel brown hair was pulled into a tight bun, and her pale blue eyes were stern. The simple red and white tunic and leggings she were looked so much more comfortable than Harry's stiff jerkin.

"Hi."

The Physician frowned.

"Why are you wearing glasses?"

"I, um, need them to see," he told her. "Do elves not wear glasses?"

"We do," Lady Poppy answered. "But not to improve our vision. Clearly, you need a more thorough check up than I realized."

Hermione perched on the arm of the couch, while Lady Poppy began pulling vials of sloshy, coloured medicine out of her satchel.

"Hm... Try this."

She handed Harry a bottle of brown goop. He barely kept himself from vomiting when she added,

"Drink up."

"Um, no. I think I'll stick with glasses. What's in this, anyway?"

"Dragon eye goop, mostly. It does wonders for vision."

"Eeew." This time, it was Hermione who complained. "I'll never be able to look at your elixirs the same way."

"I assure you, Miss Granger, this is not the most disgusting thing you or Mr. Foster will be forced to eat. However, my medicine really does do wonders."

At that, Harry was left with no choice but to down the mucky substance. It tasted... salty. And when he choked down the last of the dragon eye boogers, his eyesight blurred.

"Hey! I can't see anymore!"

"Try taking off your glasses," Lady Poppy advised.

"But they're supposed to help me see!" Harry complained.

"Not if your eyesight is fixed," Hermione pointed out.

Then a pair of hands pulled the glasses of his face, and Harry could see perfectly fine.

"Wow. I can see."

"Yes, now you can see." The Physician handed him his glasses. "However, that is only a small part of your check up."

Harry gagged at the thought of all the disgusting remedies he would have to eat that day. But, as long as they worked, he was willing to try.

An hour later, he and Hermione sat in the kitchen. Alden was in his office, finishing some important assignment before their trip to Eternalia.

"I wonder what the Dursleys are thinking right now," Harry said, as the thought struck him. "They probably aren't too sad that I'm missing."

Hermione flinched.

"Well, Harry, they might be a little bit more sorrowful than you think..."

"You don't have to make me feel better," he told her.

"I'm not actually trying to. It's just that, a missing person might never be entirely forgotten. People would keep looking, and we can't have that happening. So, Dad sort of, staged your death."

"Oh." Harry blinked.

He wasn't sure what to do with that information. The Dursley's probably still wouldn't weep too much, and he was officially free to start fresh in the Lost Cities, but on the other hand... He was now as dead to the human world as his original parents were. Which was... weird. Very, decidedly, weird.

"I'm sorry," Hermione told him.

Harry was about to tell her that it wasn't her fault when he realized...

"Remember when I told you my parents died when I was little?"

"Yes? Harry, are you okay?" Hermione sounded genuinely concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just, if I'm an elf, then were the people who died in the car crash really my parents? Because I'm pretty sure they were human."

"I don't know," Hermione answered, looking a little pale.

Harry was sure he was worse. Layer after layer of weirdness was defining his new life.

The people he had been mourning since age one might have had nothing to do with him. In fact, his real parents might not even be dead. Had the Dursleys known about any of this?