Harry Potter and the Golden Girls

Where am I?

Harry Potter was tiny and terrified as he sprinted down the hot sticky street chased by Dudley's new gang. He had hoped the move to the US would see a change in his horrible life but no. He'd traded a cupboard under the stairs to a closet in the kitchen he shared with cockroaches instead of his friendly spiders. He couldn't be left out in the Winter cold anymore but the sweltering Florida heat was just as dangerous.

Dudley had formed a new gang almost immediately and Harry's hopes of a friend were dashed within a week of arriving.

They were catching up when Harry tried to jump behind a bush and ended up rolling to a stop on a lanai at the feet of an extremely tall woman.

"Oh my! Are you okay?" She quickly knelt down to gently pick him up from the hard floor and sit him down on a soft lounge chair.

Harry nodded shakily. He didn't quite know what had happened. He couldn't hear Dudley and his gang anymore but he wasn't sure where he was at all either. He jumped and then felt unpleasantly like he'd been squeezed through a tube before being spat out on the lanai of a strange house. He'd skinned his knee and he was bruised as Dudley had caught him earlier but these were common injuries Harry ignored most of the time.

"Dorothy? What's going on?" Another woman, this one with auburn hair, rushed out followed by a woman with ultra light blonde hair.

"Did I hear an apparition? Do we have a visitor? Oh my!" The blonde woman cried before rushing forward with a pale stick in her hand.

Harry flinched hard thinking she was about to whip him with the stick, a reflex that was missed by none of the women.

"Oh it's alright Sweetie. I'm just going to heal up your knee." She gently touched the stick to Harry's knee and he was shocked when the pain and the scrap was suddenly gone.

"How did you do that?" Harry asked.

The blonde looked confused and said. "Well magic of course. You apparated in here surely you know about simple healing charms."

"No. Rose I don't think he does." The tall woman carefully sat down beside him and very lightly curled a long fingered heavily be jeweled hand around his thin shoulder. She was being extra careful as the teacher in her was picking up more and more signs that this child was abused and his knee was far from his only injury.

"Accidental apparition? Well that's rare. Good thing he landed here and not in a swamp." The auburn haired lady said as she played with her necklace worriedly.

"Or the top of a barn. Annette Storgalen accidentally apparated on to the top of Vegar Ekern's barn once. At first we thought she let the wind lift her up there but when we got her down she described the sensation of being squeezed through a tube so we knew it was apparation. She went on to become St. Olaf's fastest mail lady. She beat all the owls." Rose told him with a friendly grin.

Harry smiled back showing several missing teeth. "That's what it felt like. Like being squeezed through a tube. What's apparition? Is...m-magic really real? I'm not allowed to say that word. Please don't tell my uncle!" Harry panicked a bit. He'd only just gotten out of his closet.

"Apparition is the ability to move one's self from one location to another without traveling the distance in between. You can learn how to do it on purpose when you get older and get your license." The tall woman told him. She had a considering look on her face like he was a puzzle she was rapidly solving.

"Yes. It's quite dangerous. You can leave bits behind if you're not careful. I remember one time with Billy Joe. Big Daddy came home suddenly and Billy Joe left his-"